Singapore Temasek, GIC outperformed equity mkts-finmin

SINGAPORE Jan 19 (Reuters) - Singapore's sovereign wealth funds, the Government of Singapore Investment Corp and Temasek Holdings [TEM.UL], outperformed global equity markets in 2008, the city-state's finance minister said on Monday.

"Their overall value has fallen by less than the decline in global equity markets, as they maintain diversified portfolios and had taken precautionary actions early in the crisis to reduce their exposures to the equity markets," Tharman Shanmugaratnam said in a reply to a parliamentary question, referring to a 42 percent fall in 2008 in the MSCI World equities index. (Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Neil Chatterjee)