Quelle: CIO, USA

"The Gateway to Asia" is how the marketing brochures promoteSingapore. But Brian Chen, CTO of the Infocomm Development Authority(IDA), the government's own IT shop, offers a more practicaldescription: "Singapore is Asia 101," he says.

Or Asia Lite. Or Asia for Beginners. As opposed to countries such asChina and India, where large labor forces are at least partiallycompromised by creaky IT infrastructures or cranky governments,Singapore is the plug-and-play marketplace--a super-wired countrywhere, as the Singaporeans would have Westerners believe, thee-business is brisk and the living is easy.

"This is the place you go to get your feet wet in Asia," says Chen,who was born in Fujian Province in China, was educated as an engineerin the United States, and worked for Motorola in China just prior tojoining the IDA in early 2000. And as Chen sits in IDA's spacious,elegant lounge in the Suntec City Tower Three in Singapore's Marinadistrict (where pop rocker Christopher Cross had performed two daysbefore), Singapore certainly seems to offer Westerners a home awayfrom home. "It's an easy adjustment," Chen concludes.

Singapore has attracted Western interests since 1819, when Sir ThomasStamford Raffles of the British East India Co. stumbled upon the tinyisland (246 square miles) and quickly established it as a trading postfor the British Empire. With its central location (a short swim southfrom Malaysia) and its deep harbor, Singapore by 1869 had become athriving port for Western coal merchants, ship builders andtraders.