Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

Singapore 'in big trouble' if we are not exceptional

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was asked a range of questions during the inaugural DBS Asia Leadership Dialogue yesterday. Here are some excerpts.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was asked a range of questions during the inaugural DBS Asia Leadership Dialogue yesterday. Here are some excerpts.

What are the two to three things that keep you up at night?

Mr Lee: I think what can go wrong for Singapore, if you look at the long term, I think you can lose the specialness of this place. A place where people can look at and say “Wow”. The economy prospers, the housing scheme is something special, the city is something special, the education system is world-class. Even healthcare — low spending, good outcomes ... In 20 years’ time, if people are not interested in Singapore and we are not up there, in terms of the quality of our services, in terms of the quality of our living environment, in terms of the kind of country we are ... I think we are in big trouble.

We are today, exceptional. And if we are not exceptional, we are ordinary, I think we are in big trouble and it can easily happen ... Singapore today, for all our difficulties, I think internationally, we stand high. Can we keep that, because that makes a big difference to Singaporeans, not just to how you feel but, really, to the lives (of Singaporeans). And I think that is a big challenge.

How open are we to open immigrant policies so that they will help us continue to rejuvenate our country?

Mr Lee: The short answer is, we want to remain open to talent, we have to manage it and we have to work hard on it and that means effort both by Singaporeans as well as by the foreign people who are working here or the foreign people who decided to make (Singapore home).

Low wages in many occupations are due to a large supply of foreign workers, not low productivity. Will the Government reconsider its aversion to a minimum wage?

Mr Lee: My belief has been that a minimum wage is not going to solve the problem. If it is modest, it won’t do harm, neither will it do a lot of good. If it is high, well, then it is going to cause costs to employers and it is going to cause unemployment to the low-wage workers. So you are not really solving his problem, you are just going to transfer it somewhere else.

I think that remains true but it doesn’t mean we don’t do anything about low-end workers. We have been working, we have been working very hard, training and upgrading, we got Workfare scheme, which effectively is a wage top-up, but paid by the state, by the Government, rather than by the employer and that makes a very big difference to our workers.

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.