Gautam Banerjee is the type of foreigner Singapore wants to attract. The Indian-born accountant left London after university in the early 1980s and moved to the city-state, where he became a citizen in 1990.

Now the head of PwCAsia, he was appointed by the government to serve as a non-voting parliamentary member to promote the interests of Singapore’s growing immigrant population. “We need to get overseas talent to sink roots here,” he says.