Bhutan prays it can be India’s Hong Kong

The Himalayan kingdom seeks to reincarnate as a financial centre

King Jigme of Bhutan recalls that when he was studying in America, his classmates would scoff in disbelief when he told them there were tigers and elephants in his Himalayan homeland. Like many foreigners, they thought of it as a place of snow-clad peaks and alpine meadows. Even those who had visited were unlikely to have strayed to the subtropical lowlands that border north-east India.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Bhutan prays it can be India’s Hong Kong”

From the October 19th 2024 edition

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