Commentary on Singapore

The following sections are included:

• Contents
• Introduction

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Reviewing Economic Development after the Exit from Malaysia
• Singapore’s Economic Takeoff and Transformation into a Cosmopolitan City
• Did the Singapore Economy Grow Too High and Too Fast and Can We Optimally Chart Our Own Growth Path?
• Strategies and Policy Trade-Off Going Forward: Can We Have Our Cake and Eat It Too?
• Rapid Globalisation: Economic Restructuring and Issues Encountered
• Benchmarking Economic Performances of Two City-States: Hong Kong versus Singapore
• Overcoming Public Expectations and External Challenges: Reflection and Perspective
• An Inclusive Society: Public Housing Policy and Harmonious Industrial Relations
• Subsidising Public Services and Tracking of Four Essential Affordability Indices
• Calibrated Steady-State National Manpower Policy: Allocating One-Third Foreign Workforce for the Economy
• Quality Employment Creation: Ensuring Two-Third Indigenous PMETs by 2030
• Reflections: Stop Being Inward-Looking, Avoid Blind Spots and Pursue Correct Public Policies
• Why is Forging National Consensus under a Renewed Social Contract an Imperative?

Singapore’s economic performance has been remarkable over the past several decades, converging rapidly towards the global income frontier. From 30 percent of the per capita income of the United States (US) in 1965, Singapore moved to 110 percent by 1995 and 150 percent in 2017. Singapore sustained average growth rates in its gross domestic product (GDP) of over 5 percent in the decades from the 1970s until the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) a decade ago…

In 2012, DBS Bank bid farewell to our long-time home at Shenton Way, and moved to a new headquarters building at Marina Bay Financial Centre (MBFC) Tower 3. Being Singapore’s largest bank, our shift to the new premises effectively cemented the MBFC as the country’s new financial downtown.

Today, MBFC is a coveted business address, and the Marina Bay area, a vibrant and thriving space that epitomises the cosmopolitan, edgy city that Singapore has become. So, it might defy belief that only 50 years ago, Marina Bay was an open sea…

Singapore 4.0 — the AI (Artificial Intelligence) Lap — will bring about exciting new opportunities but also challenges. Opportunities, which if seized at the right time will lead to great rewards and prosperity for Singapore. Challenges, which if not addressed may break our society and country. The new fourth generation or 4G leaders need to not only be politically savvy, but they also need to be business and technology-savvy. More importantly, they need to take intelligent and calculated risks to grasp the opportunities and challenges of “The Second Machine Age”, which is a term coined by experts on the AI era, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee.

In the era of Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0), technological advancement is fast changing the way people live and businesses operate. Digital applications, like Uber and Airbnb, are enabling people to travel and book hotels through the Internet. E-platforms, such as Amazon and Lazada, are helping people to shop through web-based technology. E-payment schemes, similar to PayNow, Nets, are allowing people to transfer money through Internet networks, thus encouraging them to go cashless. Netflix is bringing online entertainment to people’s computers and hand-held devices.

Asia has entered a historic phase of development that will have an impact on the way it uses energy. Citizens in emerging economies are buying their first refrigerators, cars, washing machines and all other consumer goods that are taken for granted in developed economies. The same countries are undergoing rapid industrialisation and urbanisation. These trends suggest a lot more energy will be used, which means more supply will have to be produced fairly quickly…

The following sections are included:

• From Garden City to a City in Nature
• Growing the Garden City
• Towards Becoming a City in Nature

Singapore’s Garden City, conceived by the island-state’s first Prime Minister (PM) Lee Kuan Yew, may not be original but was certainly remarkable, and even unique, for its time and place. That a tiny nascent developing country, suddenly stripped of its hinterland and whose survival was questionable, could see cleaning and greening as complementary to economic development was visionary. Equally remarkable was the thoroughness of its top-down planning and execution…

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Trade-offs between Economic Growth and the Environment
• Addressing the Challenges
• Conclusion

Much of Singapore’s national identity has been shaped by its size and geography. The fact that it is a city-state forms the exoskeleton of the national narrative — the smallness of our market requiring openness and economic porosity; our vulnerability necessitating nimbleness in foreign affairs.

But, as the biophysical and planetary limitations for growth are reached and, increasingly, breached in many parts of the world, environmental issues have acquired new salience in Singapore…

In 1986, Dr Kwa Soon Bee, then Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health (MOH), asked to see me in his office. It was a cordial meeting and we discussed a range of population and public health issues. A few days later, I was asked whether I would like to join the MOH and to help establish the Population Planning Unit (PPU). Having just started my teaching career at the University of Singapore after six years of post-graduate training in demography and social planning, I was hesitant. Eventually, I was persuaded and began a joint appointment at the MOH as Director of Population Planning Unit (PPU). My first task was to help formulate the “New Population Policy” which was announced in 1987 by Mr Goh Chok Tong, then Deputy Prime Minister (DPM), to replace the “Stop at Two” policy. Since then, I have been a keen observer of Singapore’s demographic trends and helped shape some of its population policies…

Our founder, Mrs Tsao Ng Yu Shun, established the Tsao Foundation in 1993 to empower our elders and help them enjoy the opportunities for maximising personal growth, well-being and sense of fulfilment that longevity offers. In the early 1990s, Singapore was a very different place and concepts such as successful ageing and ageing in place were unheard of. In those days, the idea of home and community-based care for elders was new and the demographic concept of an ageing population was a relatively low-key subject…

Ensuring the sustainability of our society and species is perhaps the biggest challenge of our times. The science about the adverse impact of mankind’s activities on the environment has been clear since the seventies. Yet no significant action, beyond numerous ineffective global meetings, has been taken to mitigate, much less reverse the decline.

Today, we can see clear evidence of the environmental effects — fast receding polar ice caps, declining fish stocks and erratic weather patterns which are leading to socio-economic issues such as lack of access to clean water, worsening land and air pollution, and increasing rural-urban income inequality…