Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu asked for Telugu to be included as a second language taught in Singapore schools on Sunday. Naidu, who arrived here during the day, was speaking at a diaspora function.
Naidu is in Singapore on a five-day tour of duty to project Andhra Pradesh as a viable investment destination. The chief minister also launched a CXO (chief experience officer) Club, to tap the experience of Telugu-origin chief executives of multinational companies worldwide.
There are about 40,000 Singaporeans of Telugu origin, says a community leader.
Naidu said this while speaking to some 2,000 members of the diaspora at the One World International School Digital Campus here, when he urged Telugu to be taught in schools in Singapore.
Apart from Tamil being a second official language of Singapore (the three others being Malay, English, and Mandarin), Hindi and Punjabi are some of the languages offered in Singapore schools as mother-tongue-languages.
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"During his address, Chief Minister Naidu demanded that the Telugu language be taught in Singaporean schools. He instructed me to bring up with the Singapore government the question of Telugu as a second language," Indian High Commissioner Dr Shilpak Ambule informed the media.
As part of Naidu's interface with Telugu-origin people and other Indian communities, was also made public a plan to introduce Global Export-Import cell on his return to Andhra Pradesh in all-out attempts to encourage entrepreneurship among some 30 lakhs Andhra Pradesh Non-Resident Telugus residing in 128 countries, a press handout stated here.
Telangana NRIs send about ₹30,000 crore a year back to the state, which he indicated he would like to see growing in the next few years.
Naidu also spoke of his P4 programme that is a 'public private people partnerships' which will have rich people mentoring poor members of the society to enhance everyone's standard of living, it added.
The participants included Telugu entrepreneurs, representatives of companies, investors, and professionals from various countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand.
The Andhra Pradesh Non-Resident Telugu Society (APNRT) organised the event.
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