I believe they are doing the right thing, its because buying large portions of these sectors in other countries mean u can effectivkey control those countries when they are doing especially trade with u.
Its because these sectors are the backbone infrastructure of the their repective economies. they are also connected in a significat way to the financial and business systems in those countries. But those countries may be wary of this already, its also the one of the reason for the Shincorp controversy ect..But also if singapore is successful in lapping up these sectors inthose countries especially banks, then we can somehow control the value of our own SGD. How this is done , i willnot go into detail here as it is a huge and complicated. (maybe some economics expert here can elaborate).
But Buying into Merrl Lynch was a smart move becuase even though they may have lose some money, their approach to this agenda was good..
Ur title is correct....buying into telecom and bannking sectors are generally good.