Tamil Nadu will investigate the possibility of collaborating on housing projects with Singapore.

CHENNAI: According to Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, Tamil Nadu’s finance and human resource management minister, the state is considering developing flagship housing projects in collaboration with Singapore firms.

On Tuesday, he said there is a cultural and natural connection between Singapore and Tamil Nadu to collaborate in a few areas during a panel discussion titled “Partnering with Tamil Nadu for Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship,” which was organized as part of the NTU Singapore-CII Singapore-India Dialogue.

Several city-state firms have previously invested in Tennessee real estate assets and REITS, including GIC and Ascendas, which is now CapitaLand.

“There is ample room for these kinds of asset managers and developers, along with the Tamil Nadu government, to explore more such chances using Singapore firms’ technical know-how.” Our housing minister informed me that plans to promote a couple of flagship housing projects in Chennai in collaboration with Singapore companies are in the works. We could look into other commercial real estate collaboration opportunities. This is what he said.

He stated that during a previous trip earlier this year, “two prominent Singapore ministers met me, and during the contact, they invited chief minister M K Stalin to lead a delegation to explore more potential for cooperation.”

He claimed that the ‘learning curve’ phase prevented him from doing more in this area in the 17-18 months since the government took power.

He also expressed disappointment that they “weren’t able to accelerate faster” and vowed to focus more on getting things off the ground in the future.

“One area where we could collaborate more is in fintech,” Thiaga Rajan said, “particularly in credit risk management in the context of unsecured debts, as well as working on a faster and more predictable dispute resolution mechanism.”