Presenter/Interviewer: James Panichi Speakers: Kenneth Tan, director of services cluster, EDB; Martin Bloem, Helen Keller International regional director.

PANICHI: If there's more to life than money, then there's more to Singapore than the balance sheet of the city's many international corporations. Or at least, that's the view of the Economic Development Board, Singapore's investment promotion agency. In fact, it's prepared to offer non-profit organisations and NGOs incentives -- including tax breaks and access to prime office space -- to help them relocate to the city. The EDB's assumption is that charities, foundations and industry umbrella groups will give the city an extra drop of international gravitas. And that will ultimately be good for business. Kenneth Tan is the director of services cluster with the EDB.

TAN: There're loads of spin-off activities. They organise conferences here, they are a focal point for research, they have access to the best researches in advanced countries. So, even less developed countries who can come to Singapore and exchange ideas, develop new ideas, in that sense this also helps us become a knowledge hub of sorts. So, we are creating an opportunity for both the non-profit as well as the profit sectors to benefit from each other.

PANICHI: In return, the non-profit organisations get a city which is secure, modern, well serviced and at the heart of Asia's economic growth. One non-profit organisation which has taken up Singapore's offer is Helen Keller International, a research NGO which runs a number of health and nutrition programs. And while it still has offices in eight Asian countries, last year it chose to move its relatively small regional headquarters from Jakarta to Singapore. But according to Helen Keller's regional director, Martin Bloem, the decision had more to do with access to qualified researchers than Singapore government incentives.

BLOEM: The work we are doing here is now much more about starting to work with the universities here and trying to recruit people locally, which are in fact very well trained but also have this multicultural backgrounds. You know, we have people from Malay background, Chinese background and there are much less problems when we bring them, for example, to Indonesia culturally as well as language-wise and they still have the highly technical skills. That is definitely one of the reasons. Because we had to make a choice between Hong Kong and Singapore and we felt that Singapore had more to offer.

PANICHI: Although, I suppose it could be argued that for charities in particular, which have to help people in poor parts of the region, to be based in Singapore, which is one of the most prosperous cities, might make you a bit out of touch. It seems a bit unusual, doesn't it?

BLOEM: No, well, I don't know whether that's true. Because, we are very close, we have the country offices as well as we have the Singapore office, with access to the best libraries. So, it's much closer to the work that we're doing than the other agencies who do similar work to what we are doing.

PANICHI: There are 33 international non-profit organisations in Singapore at the moment, and the EDB is hoping it can help that number grow. But that's not to say Singapore wants everyone... Research foundations, industry associations or research and arbitration organisations all receive the thumbs-up. While NGOs with strong, political agendas are not among those targetted by the EDB.

TAN: I would say that the EDB is especially eyeing NGOs in certain segments: those foundations that do research that will add value, volume and breadth to the 4000 multinational HQs that we have here. We are especially keen on those areas.

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