She is among 29 women in the list which includes US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo.

This is the first time Ms Ho Ching has made it to the list of Time's Most Influential.

In the past, she had been named as one of Fortune's and Forbes's most powerful business women in Asia.

TIME said it recognises these 100 people as those "whose power, talent and moral example is transforming the world".

Among this year's highlights - Chinese President Hu Jintao is on the list for the first time and there are more names from Asia than previous years.

This year's honourees come from 27 countries and they fall under four subsections - Leaders & Revolutionaries, Artists & Entertainers, Scientists & Thinkers, and Heroes & Pioneers.

Also in this year's list are Osama bin Laden, American Idol creator Simon Fuller, Asia's richest man Li Ka-shing and Borat actor Sacha Baron Cohen.

Time's senior editor Zoher Abdoolcarim, based in Hong Kong, said drawing up the list was nothing short of a global exercise.

Editors, correspondents and reporters worldwide were consulted before a team of editors at the magazine's headquarters whittled the list down to the final 100.

"A lot of countries are looking at it (Temasek Holdings) as a way to channel investments of government revenues, as a model to do that," said Time's senior editor Abdoolcarim.

"The second thing is that Temasek Holdings has in the past year acquired a much higher profile. It has been on an acquisitive trail, investing in a lot of new countries that it wasn't looking at before. So I think this elevates Temasek to a new level of operation and strategy, and this stems very much from Ms Ho Ching's leadership." - 938LIVE

    
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