In the early 1990s, the Singapore Government commenced the development of industrial townships in other South East Asian countries, China and India. The largest individual project, the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park, was designed to accommodate a population of 600,000 and a workforce of 360,000. The township projects vary in location, scale, participants and progress but are similar in their perceived advantage, as well as sharing common design principles and organization. The context for the township projects was Regionalization 2000, a government policy initiative designed to remedy the perceived low rate of overseas investment by Singapore companies.