Modi’s Plan to Make a Singapore in Gujarat Has Fallen Flat

When Singapore set up an international financial hub in the late 1960s, the city-state was thinking both fast and slow — seizing an immediate opportunity, and opening a path to long-term economic development. Half a century later, India is attempting something similar in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat. But without much thought going into what exactly it’s building, for whom and for what purpose, all it may get is a casino for the local rich. 

For Singapore, the British pound’s 1967 devaluation was the moment of reckoning. For one thing, it raised the profile of Dick van Oenen, a Dutch trader who had made a “significant windfall” for both his employer — Bank of America — and for the newly independent city-state from that abrupt 14% change. But beyond the immediate cash, Singapore saw a broader canvas.