Singapore values IIT IIM graduates as talented pool: PM Lee

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has praised the contribution of foreign talents to the country’s progress. He said Singapore has one of the biggest pools of talented graduates from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM).  Prime Minister Lee highlighted the quality of IIT-IIM alumni as he stressed the need for Singapore to continue bringing in foreign talent to meet manpower demands.The IITs and the IIMs are the top institutions in India and securing a place in them is comparable to getting into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University or Harvard University.
Lee told Channel News Asia in a wide-ranging interview before stepping down as head of the government on May 15. Citing the community of workers from India here now, Lee said Singaporeans notice their influx as the numbers are "not small".However, they are talented individuals and are very valuable to Singapore, and "we should welcome them as we manage the flow".Singapore scouts talent globally and countries like China, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other Southeast Asian nations, especially neighbouring Malaysia, are the main sources.
Lee also pointed out that those arriving from abroad will have to be properly integrated into the city-state's multi-racial society.He said that managing the "inherent tensions" between wanting social cohesion and bringing in immigrants is the "most difficult" issue he has had to deal with.Lee addressed the topic in the exhaustive interview taking stock of his 20-year tenure as prime minister, ahead of his handover to his deputy Lawrence Wong next Wednesday.