In May, I had the opportunity to attend the Myanmar Urban Development Conference in Yangon, Myanmar. As head of our Asia Pacific operations I follow new developments in Asia, and this conference attracted my attention from several important angles. The conference was organised by Sphere Conferences, a subsidiary of Singapore Press Holdings, the largest publishing and media company in Singapore and one of the largest in Asia.

The organisers invited a number of Singaporean government agencies — the Urban Redevelopment Authority, Land Transport Authority of Singapore, and the National Parks Board, Singapore — which shared their experience in developing Singapore i