$2-bn infra fund drives India to Temasek

Road,Transport and Highway Minister Kamal Nath today said he is in discussion with Singapore's investment firm Temasek Holdings for setting up a fund.

Road,Transport and Highway Minister Kamal Nath today said he is in discussion with Singapore’s investment firm Temasek Holdings for setting up a fund,which could have a corpus of USD 2 billion,for building roads and ports in India.

The Singapore state-owned investment company,Temasek,has several investment funds dedicated to major global projects,including in China.

Nath has been meeting international investors in Singapore since Monday and held his last meeting today with top executives from Temasek and the government of Singapore Investment Corp.

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The series of meetings included investors from Japan and Europe,he said.

Sources say Temasek,a heavyweight global investor,is likely to consider a USD 2 billion India infrastructure fund,given the strong Singapore-India trade and business relations.

Nath told investors that he planned to award as much as 12,000 km of road contracts within the next fiscal year,having already awarded 7,478 km of road contracts in the past 12 months.

The minister said India has already received USD 2-3 billion in the past 12 months and a USD 500-million investment fund from Canada’s SNC Lavalin engineering and construction group recently.

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India has set a target of having more than 24,000 km of road under construction by the end of 2011.

There is a strong demand for road,especially created by a 20 per cent to 30 per cent annual growth in traffic,he told investors.

Half of India’s USD 80-billion road investment is expected to come from the private sector over the next four years. Of the private sector share,Nath expects 25 per cent to come from foreign investors.