India's next
export: Doctors?
June 27, 2005
International Herald Tribune, France
Singapore
and India have agreed to start recognizing each other's
educational qualifications in architecture, accounting
and medicine. Not many Singapore-trained doctors may want
to rough it out in Indian hospitals. From India's perspective,
though, sending more of its professionals to the city-state
is one of the juicier parts of the so-called comprehensive
economic cooperation accord that will be signed June 29.
It certainly holds out
more promise than duty-free trade, which from India's
standpoint doesn't matter much because Singapore's import
tariffs are already close to nil. Both nations can gain
if India shares its abundant human resources with its
neighbor, which has an open and pragmatic policy on foreign
workers.
A Harvard, Yale or Oxford
University-educated doctor, whose qualification is recognized
by Singapore to be as good as its own, has no compelling,
career-enhancing reason to work in Singapore. Many Indian
doctors, however, would gladly work in the city, which
does not produce as many doctors as it needs, drawn by
higher pay, better equipment and superior urban amenities
for their families.
The Indian economy, already
the world's largest recipient of remittances from overseas
workers, will benefit from sending abroad more white-collar
professionals who have high savings potential. In the
nine months through December 2004, India got about $16
billion from overseas in "private transfers,"
or 24 percent more than the export revenue from computer
software, the country's best-known international business.
Even before negotiations
began with India in 2003 for the economic cooperation
agreement, Singapore knew what it would be asked to concede.
"I believe India will push us on recognition of Indian
professionals and our facilitation of their employment
in Singapore," said Foreign Minister George Yeo.
"We're prepared to do that," Yeo, who then oversaw
the Trade and Industry Ministry, said in an interview
in March 2003.
That openness on Singapore's
part is not surprising. The city of 4.2 million people
already has 90,000 expatriate Indians. The Indian MBA
pool has contributed a lot to Singapore's financial services
industry, which accounts for 11 percent of the island's
$107 billion gross domestic product. Take the Indian Institute
of Management in Calcutta, and its class of 1993. Among
that year's graduates, Vinod Aachi is managing director
of the relative-value group, which straddles all aspects
of the credit market, at Deutsche Bank. Ashutosh Sinha,
a managing director at Morgan Stanley, manages $9 billion
in Asian equity investments outside of Japan; Manish Singhai
has the same role at Alliance Capital Management, where
he is the chief investment officer for the region. Jai
Rajpal heads Asian nondeliverable currency forward and
options trading at the same bank. Vijay Sivaraman works
for Citigroup's retail banking unit. All five of them
live in the up-market Orchard Road/Grange Road neighborhood
of Singapore. Two other former classmates, currently in
London, will soon be joining the group. "Out of our
class of 110, we have more than 15 in Singapore, many
in the same industry, living in the same neighborhood,"
says Sinha at Morgan Stanley. "This is when 40 of
us had started our careers in Bombay, where only a few
now remain. It's incredible."
Singapore, which wants
to become an Asian hub for medical tourism, will find
India's pool of English-speaking doctors a cost-effective
source with which to supplement its own small supply of
physicians. The National University of Singapore admitted
only 230 medical students in 2003. In recent years, Singapore's
government-run hospitals have recruited some Indian-trained
doctors, usually those with specialized experience in
areas like pediatric surgery. These physicians and surgeons
are often overqualified for the contract jobs they are
offered and underpaid relative to local professionals,
according to an Indian-trained doctor in Singapore.
Formal acknowledgment of
Indian medical qualifications would end the wage discount.
Ditto for accountants, architects and professionals in
120 fields in which Singapore is going to make it easier
for Indians to live and work in the city, according to
a statement last week by Trade Minister Kamal Nath of
India.
The contribution by overseas
Chinese to China's economic growth has been an example
for India, where policy makers are increasingly convinced
that the country's 20-million-strong diaspora is worth
more than the checks its members send home. Some expatriates
are returning to start their own companies; others are
buying property in India, contributing to an asset-price
boom that is making urban Indians feel richer than ever
before.
Singapore could be a net
gainer as Indian professionals in the United States and
Europe seek a soft landing in the city for a few years
before heading for the rough and tumble of their home
country. "When I look at the map of the world,"
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram of India said while presenting
his budget in February, "I'm struck by the strategic
location of Mumbai. It lies almost midway between London
and Tokyo, two nerve centers of world finance."
Now that the Indian government
has found Mumbai on the map, it will take at least a decade
before it can sort out the city's urban mess and turn
it into a financial center that can compete with Singapore
and entice bankers to return home in large numbers. Indian
doctors, meanwhile, could start getting their passports
ready.
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