- invest in specific investment opportunities when they arise. building educational bridges finally, a few remarks on education, and how we can bring our young people together. we all know how much education matters, for all our societies. it is the bedrock for human development, and the means for whole societies to realise their potential. but there is further significance in education as we address the issue of strengthening ties between asia and the middle east. our long historical ties, going back to the 2nd century b. c., are an asset. singapore ’ s arab lineages run through our veins. but to build bridges between our peoples in the 21st century, we have to not only look back to our historical ties and roots, or rekindle and reinvigorate our ties in trade. we have to work with our young. our young today grow up knowing very little of each other. we have to give them opportunities to meet, to find resonance in each other, and to strike up friendships. if we do this when our people are young, we build up trust for the future. and trust is what makes economic and business relationships last. singapore, kuala lumpur and other asian cities can play a growing role in this regard. for some years now, we have been creating what we call a “ global schoolhouse ” here in singapore. today, singapore has some 66, 000 international students pursuing different levels of education. at the university level, we have today some 16 of the best global institutions providing programmes in diverse areas. top business schools such as insead and university of chicago have established their own campuses in singapore. at our singapore universities, there is already a small middle eastern presence, with 10 undergraduate and 16 postgraduate students from middle eastern countries ( including turkey, jordan and the uae ). for the coming academic year, 31 iranian graduate students have been offered a * star international graduate scholarships, to pursue master ’ s degree studies at nus and ntu in the areas of biomedical sciences, physical sciences and engineering. ( the scholars were selected from top iranian universities, including sharif university of technology, university of tehran, shiraz university and isfahan university of technology. ) recently, al - azhar university, the harvard equivalent of islamic education, announced that it will be helping singapore develop a centre of islamic learning. established in 988 ad, al - azhar is the oldest operating university in the world. it is collaborating with the islamic religious council of singapore ( muis ) to run programmes that are likely

and kuala lumpur to provide a gateway for fund flows between the middle east and asia. singapore can by no means be a complete financial centre for the middle east. that role will be played by financial centres in the middle east. but we can and will complement and work in partnership with financial centres in the middle east, and other asian centres like kl. we can provide a gateway to take middle eastern investors into southeast asia and china, and to take investors from the region into the middle east. what can we do to facilitate and spur on these financial ties and build sturdy bridges? allow me to make three observations. first, the wealth management industry can play a pro - active role in helping investors to diversify their portfolios by introducing them to opportunities in asia and the middle east. in so doing, we will also help asian and middle eastern capital markets grow and become deeper and more liquid. we are already seeing asset managers based in singapore receiving investment mandates from investment agencies in the middle east. and singapore ’ s capitaland and the middle eastern - owned arcapital bank have recently set up a property fund aimed at investing in japanese real estate, with a target asset size of us $ 300 million. second, similarly for the banking sector. i expect to see more middle east banks and financial institutions set up in singapore and asia going forward, and a counter - flow into the middle east over time. some middle east banks are already planning to scale up their presence in singapore to service middle eastern entities interested to operate in asia, as well as to help asian corporates to operate in the middle east. there are similar plans by singapore - based financial institutions to step up their profile in the middle east as they seek to tap into middle eastern financial flows. such plans may give added impetus as singapore concludes ftas with more middle eastern countries, including those which are currently ongoing with qatar and kuwait. third, islamic finance is an area that shows considerable promise globally. we know the size of the market - around us $ 200 to us $ 300 billion globally, and growing at about 15 % per annum. efforts are being made in asian markets, to grow islamic financial services. for example, malaysia has been awarding islamic banking licences to foreign players and encouraging the subsidiarisation of islamic banking windows. it aims to have 20 % of total banking assets to be islamic by 2010. singapore, as an international financial centre, is also keen to offer islamic financial services. we must, as part of