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AIIB kicks off with $72m boost from China

January 17, 2016, 8:56 pm
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New multilateral Beijing-led bank aims to improve infrastructure investment in Asia
By Esther Teo, The Sunday Times, 17 Jan 2016

China will pump another US$50 million (S$72 million) into the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), President Xi Jinping announced yesterday, as the new multilateral bank widely seen as Beijing's challenge to the global financial order officially got off the ground.

The bank will boost investment for infrastructure in Asia and improve connectivity and integration, Mr Xi said yesterday at the bank's lavish opening ceremony in Beijing.

"This is a historical moment," Mr Xi said in his opening speech to hundreds of invited guests, including Singapore's Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat who is the city-state's governor at the AIIB.

"It will bring a better investment environment and more job opportunities and trigger greater medium- to long-term development potential on the part of developing members in Asia. This in turn will give impetus to economic growth in Asia and the wider world."



Amid growing fears of a sharp slowdown in the world's No.2 economy, Premier Li Keqiang, also speaking at the ceremony, said China's economy grew by around 7 per cent last year, with the services sector accounting for half of gross domestic product.

He added that employment had expanded more than expected and that consumption contributed nearly 60 per cent of economic growth.

The Beijing-based bank, seen as a rival to the Japan-led Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United States-led World Bank, has become one of China's biggest diplomatic coups.

Despite the opposition from Washington, 57 countries - including Singapore and major US allies such as Australia, Britain and South Korea - have joined, although Japan has notably declined.

The AIIB will enable China to undertake more global obligations and help make the current global economic governance system "more just, equitable and effective", Mr Xi said, adding that the bank would aim to invest in "high-quality, low-cost" projects.

China will contribute the US$50 million to a special preparatory fund to be established soon for infrastructure projects in less developed member states, he said at the opening ceremony.

Already, China has an initial subscription of US$29.78 billion in authorised capital stock in the AIIB, out of a total of US$100 billion.



Yesterday, Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei, who is also chairman of the AIIB council, said the bank will work together with other multilateral banks, including the World Bank and the ADB, to facilitate Asian infrastructure construction and sustainable development.

Indonesia's Finance Minister, Mr Bambang Brodjonegoro, and Germany's State Secretary in the Finance Ministry, Mr Thomas Steffen, were chosen as vice-chairmen, while China's former finance vice-minister Jin Liqun was elected as bank president.

Experts say that while the AIIB's management has hit all the right notes with its pledge to be transparent, efficient and environmentally friendly, the real test lies ahead.

Dr Robert Wihtol, a former ADB country director for China, told The Sunday Times the real challenge will be for the bank to walk the talk.

"Attracting experienced staff will be crucial. The AIIB must show that it can prepare infrastructure projects to a high standard and implement them in the challenging operational environment that exists in many Asian countries," he said.

Dr Wihtol also said that China's contribution to the new preparatory fund, which is similar to those in other multilateral banks, was a positive sign. "It indicates that China and the AIIB understand the magnitude of the challenges ahead, especially in Asia's poorer countries."





“The AIIB is a significant initiative in advancing infrastructure development and connectivity in the region. “ – AIIB...
Posted by Ministry of Finance (Singapore) on Sunday, January 17, 2016






Bank can help fill gaps in infrastructure: Heng
By Esther Teo, China Correspondent In Beijing, The Sunday Times, 17 Jan 2016

Multilateral financial institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) play a unique role in filling the infrastructure gap that cannot be fully met by the public sector or the private sector, said Singapore's Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat yesterday.

While infrastructure is critical in spurring growth, such investments are by nature lumpy and costly, and yield positive returns only over many years, he noted in a speech at the bank's inaugural board of governors' meeting yesterday.

"Full private sector funding of infrastructure projects is hence difficult, given the long project duration and complex risks. Fiscal constraints also limit public sector funding," said Mr Heng, who is also Singapore's governor at the AIIB.

But while the new lender is a significant initiative in pushing regional infrastructure development and connectivity, more steps can be taken to maximise the bank's impact in fostering economic and social development in Asia, he said.

I'm in Beijing for the ceremonies and meetings to mark the setting up of the AIIB, or the Asian Infrastructure...
Posted by Heng Swee Keat on Saturday, January 16, 2016


Mr Heng, who is on a two-day visit to Beijing that ends today, suggested four areas that the Beijing-led bank can look into. First, it can strengthen capabilities of policymakers by providing technical assistance and practical advice to more governments. Second, it can make efforts to leverage its financing and attract funding from the private sector.

Third, the AIIB can explore innovative mechanisms to spur the development of infrastructure as an asset class. And lastly, it can actively collaborate with other multilateral institutions such as the World Bank to promote sustained growth in Asia and set high standards in governance, procurement, environmental and social safeguards.

"I am confident that the AIIB is well placed to make impactful, positive contributions in this region to build better lives for our people," said Mr Heng.





China holds veto power on major decisions
By Esther Teo, The Sunday Times, 17 Jan 2016

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a Beijing-led initiative meant to help finance infrastructure projects across Asia.

First proposed by President Xi Jinping about two years ago, it now has 57 member countries - including Singapore as a founding member. It was launched last June with a registered capital of US$100 billion (S$144 billion).

Under the AIIB's voting structure, China holds over a quarter of the votes, giving it veto power on major decisions such as choosing the bank's president, providing funding outside the region and allocating the bank's income. This is, however, unlikely to affect day- to-day operations, which will be managed by a multinational team.

China's former vice-finance minister, Mr Jin Liqun, who heads the bank, said he expects the institution to lend between US$10 billion and US$15 billion a year for the first five or six years.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has put Asia's infrastructure demand at up to US$730 billion a year by 2020.

The AIIB is one of three entities China is promoting, along with a joint Brics Development Bank with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa and a Silk Road Fund that aims to revive Chinese commercial ties in South and Central Asia. They would join existing bodies, including the ADB, World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, in offering finance to developing nations.





AIIB to choose top officials 'on merit'
Lender wants to avoid perception of political appointments seen at other multilateral banks
By Esther Teo, China Correspondent In Beijing, The Straits Times, 18 Jan 2016

Key senior appointments at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will be based on merit and a candidate's competence, bank president Jin Liqun has stressed, as the world's newest multilateral lender prepares to offer its first loan by the middle of the year.

"With regard to senior positions such as vice-presidents and the director-general, the basic principle is meritocracy. This can never ever be compromised," he said at the AIIB's first press conference in Beijing yesterday, a day after the 57-member bank was officially opened. Singapore is a founding member.

"The vice-president position will be created for the purpose of specific responsibilities. I will try to avoid creating senior positions just for the sake of meeting the needs of some countries as that will lead to redundancies in the future," he said, noting that the bank's human resources head is not a Chinese national.

Existing multilateral banks, including the Washington-based World Bank and the Japan-led Asian Development Bank (ADB), are frequently criticised for filling senior positions on political grounds, and experts have been sceptical about whether the AIIB can avoid giving in to the same political pressures.

Dr Robert Wihtol, a former ADB country director for China, said the establishment of the AIIB is a golden opportunity to break with this practice and ensure that appointments at even the most senior levels are merit-based. "Appointments to the top position at other major international financial institutions have for decades been nationality-based," he said.

While Mr Jin did not address the issue of whether China will have a monopoly on the presidency, Dr Wihtol said "rotating the nationality of the AIIB presidency would be a bold and welcome move and would set a new standard for other international financial institutions to follow".

The new bank, proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in October 2013, is meant to fund infrastructure investment in Asia.

Mr Jin, who is a former Chinese vice-finance minister, also revealed that the Beijing-backed lender has a good pipeline of both standalone and joint financing projects. It is working closely with other international lenders such as the World Bank and the ADB, he said.

"Most likely, the bankable and mature projects will come from the ideas of the World Bank, ADB... and other institutions.

"We are certainly open to co-financing with other partners (such as) private sector companies. But one thing is sure, we will work with partners who can (meet) the same standards as us."

Reports say the AIIB's first loans could be related to transport such as roads, renewable energy, urban development and water.

The US$100 billion (S$144 billion) bank will also have a special compliance and integrity unit that will exercise oversight over the management and report directly to the board, said Mr Jin, who is also a former vice-president of the ADB.

Developing a good corporate culture that holds its staff to high standards is "far more important than just making loans", he added.

Mr Jin's pledge comes amid concerns that the AIIB might fail to keep global standards in environmental, labour and anti-corruption protection, given that China's bilateral lending programmes in Africa, Asia and Latin America have been tainted by controversial projects.


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Singapore physics teaching software wins global award

January 17, 2016, 11:35 pm
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By Amelia Teng, The Straits Times, 16 Jan 2016

A range of computer software that brings physics concepts to life has earned Singapore a global award recognising teaching methods that make use of technology.

Open Source Physics at Singapore (OSP@SG), developed in 2012 by the Ministry of Education (MOE), contains a range of resources for teachers and students to simulate experiments.

Singapore was one of the two countries that won the UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of information and communications technology (ICT) in education, which is funded by Bahrain.

The other was Costa Rica, which won for a programme that gives marginalised students living in rural and urban areas access to education through digital skills.

The two winners, selected from more than 100 applications, were each given US$25,000 (S$36,000) at a prize ceremony held on Wednesday at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Since 2005, the award has been given to governments, organisations and individuals using ICT to improve learning.

The MOE yesterday said it has received positive feedback about theOSP@SG project, both locally and globally. The free software, which is available around the world, has been used by almost 10,000 students in 12 schools such as River Valley High School, Innova Junior College and Victoria JC.

It allows teachers to use interactive tools to help students visualise physics concepts better. For instance, they can play around with data to calculate the optimum time for a person to release his parachute, or different levels of energy in a pendulum swing.

Innova JC physics teacher Ong Chee Wah uses OSP@SG to teach concepts such as superposition, which refers to the interaction patterns of two overlapping waves.

"We can change factors such as the distance between waves or the speed of the waves, to see how they affect the resulting pattern," he said, adding that students are better able to observe these changes using pictorial representations and graphs.

Mr Tan Kim Kia, a physics teacher at Evergreen Secondary School, has used the software in his Secondary 1 and 3 classes in the last two years. He introduces kinematics, the study of objects in motion, through video analysis software that tracks movement.

"As we plot movement in graphs, students learn concepts like velocity and time. It also helps them see patterns in movement.

"It takes some effort to learn to use technology, but we are encouraging more teachers to adopt it, so we can design a curriculum that makes learning easier for students," he said.


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World can gain from more TCM research

January 17, 2016, 11:49 pm
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By Lee Wei Ling, Published The Sunday Times, 17 Jan 2016

Doctors might be asked to express their view of traditional medicine from time to time. It can be a sensitive subject as traditional medicine tends to be bound up with a philosophical system.

Consequently, cultural chauvinism might surface, as during discussions about national healthcare systems. This was evident in reactions to the award of the 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine, half of which went to China's Tu Youyou. She was recognised for extracting an effective anti-malarial drug, artemisinin, from sweet wormwood.

There is no question that she deserves her Nobel award as artemisinin is the most effective anti-malarial drug now available. But I am ambivalent about the impact of the award because it might lead laymen to believe traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is more effective than it actually is.

Indeed, the Nobel committee had stressed that it was not giving a prize to traditional medicine but for specific scientific work inspired by it. This contradicts what Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said when he hailed her discovery as an example of the "great contribution of TCM to the cause of human health".

The extent to which chauvinism and vested interests can rise even here is illustrated by what was faced by Singapore's father of paediatrics, Professor Wong Hok Boon. In the late 1970s, Prof Wong, publicly stated that to ingest TCM is equivalent to eating grass. Soon after that, he received death threats. Prof Wong took the threats seriously enough to accept the presence of security officers who accompanied him publicly for a couple of weeks.

As a scientifically trained doctor, I have always tried to dissuade my patients from turning to TCM for many reasons. First, TCM, until recent years, generally does not adopt a scientific approach to illness and the medicines do not usually target specific illnesses. Second, faith in TCM often has cultural roots and is not based on clear evidence of its efficacy.

TCM champions argue that it is unlikely for no effective medicines to emerge after five thousand years of continuous Chinese civilisation. Even my father was inclined to believe this. My reply to Papa was: "Life is cheap in China."

A cultural bias can also lead to contradictions. Professor Volker Scheid of London's University of Westminster, who studied TCM for 30 years, said: "I would say 95 per cent of Chinese would think I cannot be a very good TCM practitioner because I am not Chinese, but, at the same time, China wants to make Chinese medicine global."

I personally think TCM is unreliable (regardless of who the TCM practitioner is) because it lacks a scientific basis. Most times, it could be just hocus-pocus.

The basis of TCM is not about human biology, as we know it. It postulates that the human body contains a life force called qi. And illness is the result of imbalances between the five elements - fire, water, earth, metal and wood. None of this has ever been proven but, to believers, that is irrelevant.

Nobel laureate Tu's achievement is that she chemically extracted the active ingredient of a single plant in isolation. Such extraction is absent when a TCM shop prepares doses from a variety of plant and, occasionally, animal sources. No one knows the active ingredient at work, the concentration of such substances, or the presence of active components that are detrimental to health. But instructions on how to prepare and take the herbal brew, combined with folklore and cultural belief, can give the patient a false sense of security.

Every now and then, our Health Sciences Authority issues a statement of caution warning the public that certain batches of TCM medicines have been tested and found to contain lead or arsenic. Both these substances are toxic and dangerous to humans.

In 1980, I accompanied my parents on Papa's second official visit to China. The wife of the Chinese official accompanying us on that trip was a doctor trained in TCM and Western medicine. She told me that spine X-rays of a patient with back pain often show excess bone on the spinal column (spondylosis), a problem common in older people which may or may not cause back pain.

According to her, after practising qigong for some time, the X-rays of patients revealed no excess bone. She had published her findings in a Chinese medical journal. This is totally unbelievable, since qigong cannot cause bone to disappear. What is possible is that the patient did have back pain (which may or may not have been due to spondylosis) and the qigong, as a form of exercise, helped to reduce the back pain.

Many TCM practitioners sell hope. I will never forget a 10-year-old old girl whom I saw with brainstem glioma (brain tumour). When I told her parents the prognosis was grim in her case, they asked around and found a TCM practitioner who assured them that if he treated the girl, there was a 30 per cent chance of a cure.

I tried to dissuade them from taking this route but her father said: "He offers me a chance for hope, how can I not try it?" A few weeks later, the parents brought the patient back to see me because her condition had deteriorated due to the natural progression of the disease. The father was $20,000 poorer by then (this was in the 1980s when $20,000 represented a large sum of money). TCM did not lead to adverse effects but my treatment would have somewhat relieved the patient of suffering, although Western medicine could not change the natural course of the disease.

TCM physicians claim that, unlike Western medicine, TCM works gently and gradually. Western drugs are said to be too powerful and abrupt in their action. This situation makes it difficult for patients to know whether the medicine is effective, and also difficult for science to establish if the medicine works. When patients delay seeking proper treatment by seeing TCM physicians instead, that delay could have detrimental consequences.

TCM often uses herbs, and practitioners claim what they prescribe is natural and works like a general tonic, unlike a drug that specifically targets certain organs or certain diseases. Examples are ginseng and cordyceps.

Laymen, as a rule, connect "natural" with "safe". But remember that nature did not evolve to serve mankind. For example, digoxin, which is used in treating heart disease, was first obtained from the leaves of a digitalis plant. But it certainly can be fatal in overdose.

Quite a few TCM practitioners might add effective Western medicine to their "natural" prescription. For an asthmatic, they might include a corticosteroid such as prednisolone. That will indeed improve the asthma and make the patient put on weight. Both are desirable outcomes for the mother of a patient. But there are other important negative effects to health when ingesting excessive amounts of certain substances.

Although I am cynical about TCM, I am not saying all TCM treatments are ineffective. What the world can benefit from is research into the active components of each particular TCM medicine and into how it works. By doing so, we can more precisely identify what agents are effective and test their wider application as well as their side effects. In studying the mechanism of action of the active agent, we will gain valuable knowledge of the pathogen as well as how the human body reacts towards the pathogen.

I do not reject TCM but I feel patients deserve better care than the way TCM is currently applied. I also hope researchers will be able to learn more about the benefits possible from TCM medicines. Whatever the form of medicine, ultimately what matters is that patients are helped to recover and risks to them are minimised.


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Veteran civil servants share lessons learnt from Old Guard

January 18, 2016, 12:17 am
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Pioneers speak on planning for the future of Singapore, to full-house crowd
By Cheong Suk-Wai, Senior Writer, The Straits Times, 16 Jan 2016

Two pioneers of Singapore's success gave big hints yesterday as to how it could glow even more as a global city in future.

But far from crystal ball-gazing, former Chief Planner and HDB chief executive Liu Thai Ker and founding Singapore Airlines chairman J. Y. Pillay drew from their bedrock of lessons learnt from the Republic's founding fathers, namely former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, his deputy Goh Keng Swee and its first finance minister Hon Sui Sen.

They did so at a dialogue with The Straits Times' editor-at-large Han Fook Kwang, to a full house of more than 250 people, including more than 20 ST readers. It was the second of six forums this year, run by the EDB Society and ST to show how "economic development is everyone's business", said the society's president Lee Suan Hiang.

Messrs Liu and Pillay joined the civil service when, as Mr Liu said, Singapore was "more backward than Yangon, Saigon and Manila". But their ministers had given them much "leeway" in shaping Singapore, which would surprise many Singaporeans, who tend to think of the Old Guard as authoritarian.

Added Mr Liu, who developed 23 new towns here in his 24 years with the HDB: "While we were very inexperienced, our political leaders gave us a lot of freedom to find our ways to solve problems."

In his case, for example, he would meet Mr Lee at least six times a year to think through how to house Singapore's 1.15 million squatters rapidly, resulting in the HDB building one flat every eight minutes.

"Clarity equals courage," he said, underscoring what enabled the Old Guard to launch headlong into efforts to build high-rise, high-density public housing, which was globally disdained but necessary for Singapore.

Yet even with such courage, Mr Pillay said, it was not always plain sailing, especially in the inflation-fraught 1970s. "We made errors all the time," he recalled. "We are not perfect... governing is not pretty, upward, rising. It's full of hurdles. That's life."

In future, Mr Liu, who is director of architectural and engineering firm RSP, said urban planners here should plan for the long term, say, 150 years and not every 15 years. Likening the long view to creating a "bird of paradise" and short-term designs as "turkeys", he said: "If you plan for the next 16 years, some of the roads will be secondary. But if you plan for 150 years, some of these roads may need to be expressways and if you are not thinking long-term, you may need to keep chopping and changing."

Asked how anyone could plan ahead for 150 years when technology was ever-changing, Mr Liu said technology should enhance, not replace, good design. "One of the reasons for global warming today is that architects depend so much on technology that their buildings are not based on good orientation and when the buildings do not work, they just pump in cold air. That is abuse of technology."

When ST reader Eileen Bygrave asked if happiness should be factored into future economic growth, Mr Pillay said: "I find the pursuit of happiness very odd. Profit is what you get from the difference between revenue and expenditure. It's exactly the same for happiness - create the provision for it and eventually it will come to you."

Summing up, Mr Han noted that part of Singapore's improbable success was thanks to its having civil servants such as Messrs Liu and Pillay. He said: "They have been strong in character, strong in intellect and strong in having great empathy for people."




NO NEED TO DRAW ON RESERVES

What puzzles me is, why hit on the reserves because, even before you touch the reserves, the Government can help industries. So, I don't think we need to go that far.

- MR PILLAY, on the Singapore Business Federation's proposal last week that the Government should tap Singapore's reserves to help suitable firms expand



GULF HEADWINDS

The competition is indeed severe, and very difficult to control. One of the carriers is fuelled by gas, another by coal and a third, by Monopoly money.

- MR PILLAY, on the Gulf carriers that are competing fiercely with SIA for passengers



CLEAR SENSE OF MISSION

The word 'survival' would appear in the newspapers every week because the political leaders kept reminding us of it... There was a sense of desperation, but also a clear sense of mission.

- MR LIU, on what civil servants faced in the years just after independence



BIRD OF PARADISE , NOT TURKEY

If you plan long term, you plan, physically, for a bird of paradise. If you plan a bit every 15 years, and then for another 15 years, you are creating a series of small turkeys, and when you put turkeys together on a small island, it will not be a paradise.''

- MR LIU, on the importance of taking the long view when designing a city


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Time for a ministry for successful ageing

January 18, 2016, 12:29 am
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By Devadas Krishnadas, Published The Straits Times, 16 Jan 2016

Singapore is a rapidly ageing society. Despite aggressive immigration over the last decade and a half, the share of the population aged over 65 will be one in three by 2030.

The paradox for Singapore is that its economic success has translated into longer lifespans, which means that even as Singaporeans have become healthier, their retirement financing has become an increasing cause for concern. Not only is ageing an issue of personal finances, but it also touches all dimensions at the national level - political, social, economic and even security.

The Singapore Government has not been blind to these challenges. In 2007, it established a Ministerial Committee on Ageing. It embarked on an immigration drive in an attempt to inject younger people into the population in general and the labour force in particular. It is expending large amounts on research and development of ageing-related technology and medical science.

While all this has been well and good, it is time to look at the question of whether and how Singapore can better organise its response to the ageing challenge. There are four principal problems with the current approach.

First, accountability.

The ministerial committee, first headed by Mr Lim Boon Heng and now Mr Gan Kim Yong, has no mandate over resources or direct operational control of any government agency or department.

The ageing challenge is an enduring and increasingly urgent problem which should be considered a national priority.

While the Government is indeed doing many things, there is a need to pin accountability to lead the national response on a specific political office-holder. Given the scale and scope of the challenge, this office-holder should be of sufficient rank - a deputy prime ministerial level seems reasonable.

Second, rationalisation.

A cursory survey of the Government's response to ageing at the institutional level will identify several different agencies distributed over multiple ministries which have explicit mandates concerning ageing.

These include the National Population and Talent Division, the Agency for Integrated Care, The Council for Third Age, the Ageing Planning Office at the Ministry of Health, the Pioneer Generation Office and Active Ageing Directorate at the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth.

It stands to reason that there would be advantages to rationalising across these entities and consolidating resources and authority.

Not only would that yield efficiencies and better coordination but turf issues would also be avoided.

Third, mindsets.

The ageing challenge should be framed as a collective responsibility and not one for the Government alone to manage. The individual citizen must play a part in remaining healthy, economically productive and financially self-supporting - for longer.

Rather than simply lecture citizens, the Government must find the means to incentivise people in this direction.

For instance, a way could be found to encourage people to report their fitness states digitally and those citizens found to take responsibility, exercise and eat right could be rewarded with lower premiums on their compulsory MediShield Life policy.

Another example could be to pay those who top up their Supplementary Retirement Scheme accounts a higher interest rate.

An added incentive could be bonus payments for those who do so regularly over a period of five years.

Fourth, resources.

To give the ageing challenge the due attention it deserves, Singapore needs a ministry set up with the mandate, resources and leadership to give sustained attention at the national level.

The many institutional entities which have ageing as a mandate should be folded into this new Ministry for Successful Ageing and their budgets pooled to provide critical mass in financing.

The ageing challenge is neither simple nor inherently solvable. There is no perpetual "right answer" to how best to organise and respond to the challenge. The current approach has been adequate to date.

Going forward, a more deliberate, sustained and concentrated approach to policy and operation of ageing-related initiatives should be considered. This needs "right-sizing" of the Government's response to the challenge.

Tagging accountability to a high-enough-level political office-holder, consolidating authority and resources at a time of escalating budgets but potentially lagging revenues and designing schemes to incentivise better citizen behaviour and personal responsibility are ideas which merit a rigorous debate in the present as they concern how we as a society will face the singular challenge that will define our future.

The writer is the chief executive officer of Future-Moves Group, a management consulting firm.



"Tagging accountability to a high-enough-level political office-holder, consolidating authority and resources at a time...
Posted by Devadas Krishnadas on Friday, January 15, 2016



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More seniors being cheated by their kids

January 18, 2016, 1:04 am
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Social workers say the financial abuse cases reported are just tip of the iceberg
By Theresa Tan, The Sunday Times, 17 Jan 2016

Social workers are seeing more senior citizens who have been cheated or financially abused by their children.

The children may have tricked or talked the parents into selling their home, often with the promise that the parents can live with the children in the children's home. But after taking the sale proceeds, they treat the parents shabbily, some even throwing the parents out.

Cases involve children tricking their parents into selling their homes with the promise that they can live with them, only for the parents to be kicked out after the sale.
Posted by The Straits Times on Saturday, January 16, 2016


There are also cases where children hold a parent's ATM card or manage their finances, as the parent may be too frail to go to the bank or is unfamiliar with the banking system. But the parent's life savings get wiped out as the children help themselves to the money.

Also common are situations of adult sons demanding money regularly from elderly parents and turning violent if they do not comply.

TRANS Safe Centre, a charity specialising in helping abused elderly people, dealt with 11 seniors who suffered some form of financial abuse last year. In 2008, it had only two such cases, its senior social worker Mrs Chua Yixin told The Sunday Times.

Care Corner Project StART, another of the three agencies that specialise in helping those affected by family violence, estimates that it had about 20 such new cases last year, a "considerable" rise over the last few years, its team leader Kristine Lam said.

PAVE, another family violence specialist centre, does not track the number of seniors who have been financially abused, but said the issue is definitely of concern. This is because social workers say that the cases reported are but the tip of the iceberg. Parents not only fear they will get the children in trouble if they go to the police, but also worry that the children will cut off ties if they go public.

And even when they seek assistance, it is often for financial aid or to find a place to stay for themselves or the abusive child. When doing so, they keep mum about how they have been exploited.

Said Mrs Chua: "The elderly may not even see this as abuse, but as their bad karma to have an unfilial child. They think it's shameful to tell others and they don't know what can be done about it."

Take for example the case cited by Project StART's Ms Lam of a widow in her 80s whose only child got her to sell her house worth $4 million. The son, a businessman in his 40s, asked his mother to sign a document, purportedly to rent out her house and give him the rental income to help him cope with business woes.

As it turned out, the document was for the sale of the house. He later promised to buy her a small flat.

But that did not happen, and she found herself living with his family of five in his two-room flat. The woman also said her daughter-in-law treated her badly.

But she put up with it, as her son told her he would cut off ties and not attend her funeral if she went against his wishes, Ms Lam said.

Social workers say the financial abuse cuts across all income groups.

Mrs Chua gives the example of a widow in her 80s who receives $450 a month from the Government's Public Assistance (PA) scheme for the destitute.

She is bedridden and lives with the youngest of her six children, a son in his 50s. The jobless man used his mother's PA money for himself, leaving her malnourished, among other problems. He even took his mother out to the streets to beg, his siblings told Mrs Chua.

But when they questioned their brother or tried to visit the old woman, he threatened to kill himself and found ways to stop them from visiting her. With the social workers' help, however, the other children eventually managed to have her placed in a nursing home.

Mrs Chua said many such abuse cases come to light only when the other children smell a rat.

For instance, when the parents are not properly looked after, or when the child who is suspected of cheating the parent prevents siblings from having any contact with the parent.

One man even went so far as to take his mother to a lawyer's office to sign a statutory declaration - a statement made under oath - that she did not want any contact with her four other children. She also signed a letter authorising the son, a professional in his 40s, to handle her finances - her worth is estimated to be in the millions.

The son has prevented his siblings from visiting. He refuses to open the door when they show up, and they have not seen their mother, who is in her 80s and uses a wheelchair, for over a year.

The woman's other children suspect that he has got her to make him the sole beneficiary in her will, Mrs Chua said. They are now exploring their options to gain access to their mother, she added.

Many cases of financial abuse involve a son abusing his mother.

Said Mrs Chua: "Mothers tend to give in to their children's demands more often than dads. Traditionally, mothers dote on their sons more, so some take advantage of this."

Associate Professor Ruby Lee of the National University of Singapore Law Faculty said financial abuse is a tough nut to crack as most seniors do not want to report the wrongdoing or take their children to court.

Making a police report may not help, because the children's actions, while morally wrong, may not be a criminal offence, she said, citing the example of children reneging on their promise to house their parents after taking the proceeds from selling the parents' flat.

But if a parent has lost his mental capacity due to dementia, for example, and a child is suspected of cheating the parent, the siblings can ask the court to appoint them as deputies to make key decisions on the parent's behalf.

For a start, social workers say it is important to raise awareness of financial abuse so that the elderly can learn how to safeguard their money. Ms Micki Sim, a social worker at @27 Family Service Centre, suggested: "Talk to someone, like a social worker, if you feel you have been exploited and we will see how we can help."





Son sells aged father's three-room flat, takes money and leaves him destitute
By Theresa Tan, The Sunday Times, 17 Jan 2016

At the age of 74, Mr Ng (not his real name) found himself heartbroken and destitute.

His only son cheated him of his only asset - a three-room flat - and left him to fend for himself.

To get by, the retired cleaner survives on two meals a day and stays with a distant relative.

His other child, a daughter, is mentally ill, unemployed and can be violent at times, he told The Sunday Times.

His wife is in a nursing home.

Earlier last year, his son, a blue-collar worker in his 40s, persuaded him to sell his flat and move in with his family.

He told Mr Ng he could keep the sales proceeds from the flat and use it for his daily expenses.

Said Mr Ng: "I was reluctant to sell but my son kept pestering me to sell."

He said he is not sure how much his flat was sold for, but his son told him that he would get an initial payment of $40,000.

The money never materialised.

Later, he found out his son took the amount as the son manages Mr Ng's bank account. His wife had entrusted their son with the couple's bank account and ATM card, Mr Ng said.

"When I asked my son what happened to the money, he said he spent it. I think he owes the banks money," he said.

"He told me not to harass him and he threatened to call the police if I keep calling him."

Mr Ng said his son hardly gave him any financial support in the past, even when he asked for it. He suffers from a host of ailments, including diabetes and arthritis.

Mr Ng has lodged a police report but said the police told him to file a civil claim against his son instead.

He thinks it is pointless to do so as his son would not be able to return the $40,000 to him anyway.

Social workers from TRANS Safe Centre, a charity which works with seniors who have been abused by their loved ones, have helped him close the bank account that his son had access to.

Said Mr Ng: "My son is very ruthless."


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More elderly take to mobility scooters

January 18, 2016, 7:13 pm
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By Lydia Lam, My Paper, 18 Jan 2016

SALES of mobility scooters have picked up pace here, with one retailer saying its sales have doubled in a year and another estimating that there are now "tens of thousands" of such devices in use.

Retailers whom My Paper spoke to said demand - mainly from the elderly, disabled and those with walking difficulties - has benefited from prices dipping by as much as 50 per cent in recent years.

Prices range from $1,500 for a basic model to $6,000 for a premium one.

At retailer Agis Mobility, its directors James and Andrew Lee noted that sales doubled last year to 400, compared with the year before.

Warren Chew, managing director of Falcon Mobility, said buyers are between 60 and 80 years old.

Many of them can walk but need help to cover longer distances.

On cheaper prices - a small four-wheeler costs about $1,700, versus about $3,000 in 2008, he linked this to "economies of scale as the market has grown more than 10-fold".

The mobility scooters are usually imported from China, Taiwan and the United States.

My Paper understands that they are allowed on public transport such as buses and trains, but not on main roads.

Boasting average speeds of 6kmh, they are often customised with LED lights, baskets and even portable speakers.

Such add-ons are usually done at local bike shops or by users themselves, said Vanessa Keng, director of retailer The Golden Concepts.

She estimates that there are now "tens of thousands" of such scooters, compared with the "low thousands" when they first appeared about eight years ago.

Lee Chang Xi, co-founder of The Golden Concepts, said they set up the eldercare product retail store to cater to the growing ageing population here.

Asked if the increasing number of mobility scooters would pose a problem, Ms Lee said: "Most people will follow the rules and won't go on the main roads anyway."

Organisations have rolled out schemes involving the gadget. An initiative launched by the Radin Mas Citizens' Consultative Committee in June 2014 lets residents borrow mobility scooters from its fleet of 30 for free, with about 10 being loaned out daily.

A spokesman told My Paper that the service has been well-received, with some seniors saying it makes commuting more convenient to run errands, which "improved their social engagement".

An expert panel led by the Land Transport Authority is developing a set of rules for the use of personal mobility devices including mobility scooters, set to be released by the second quarter of this year.





Trips a breeze for great-grandma, 92
By Lydia Lam, My Paper, 18 Jan 2016

SHE may be 92 but can still get around just fine, thanks to her mobility scooter.

Lily Tan Gek Hong is hale and hearty for her age but gets help from her scooter for tackling longer distances while out on trips with her family such as to the Botanic Gardens.

Madam Tan, who has four children, 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, exercises daily and has activities lined up every day of the week.

She rides the four-wheeler to the market where she says a fruit-seller often teases her: "Auntie, do you have a licence?"

Madam Tan also scoots along on her S19 Brio Travel Portable Scooter to church on Sundays, manoeuvring it up the ramp and parking it in a corner.

It also helps her keep up with her great-grandchildren on their kick scooters.

Wheels are in her blood, Madam Tan told My Paper.

"When I was younger, I drove a car and a scooter," she said.

Her husband, who died about 20 years ago, was a manager at car dealer Borneo Motors.

Now, her granddaughter Lee Chang Xi, 28, is the co-founder of The Golden Concepts, which sells mobility scooters and other aids for the elderly.

The foldable $2,588 model she is using now - a Christmas gift from her family - is her third.

Madam Tan said people would usually stare when they see her riding on her scooter - a habit she has adopted for about five years now.

While she was driving about in the gardens during her meeting with My Paper on Thursday, several people turned to look amusedly and most gave way to her.

The device was nimble and could scale steep slopes and traverse tight corners.

When asked where else she hopes to go to on family outings with her scooter, Madam Tan pointed to Gardens by the Bay, National Gallery Singapore and the Singapore Art Museum.

"If they'll let me in," she said, chuckling.

"Last time, if (my family) asked me to go to places where I must walk very far, I'll say no," she quipped.

"But now, with my scooter, I say yes!"


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Fines up for disabled parking misuse

January 18, 2016, 7:39 pm
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First-time offenders to pay $200, from $50; authorities plan stiffer measures if needed
By Adrian Lim and Rachel Chia YT, The Straits Times, 18 Jan 2016

Drivers caught misusing parking spaces for the disabled in public carparks now face heftier fines, The Straits Times has learnt.

Fines for first-time offenders have been quadrupled from $50 to $200 since December, with the authorities saying that they are monitoring the situation and will consider stiffer measures if necessary.

Heftier fines for motorists who misuse parking spaces for the disabled. First-time offenders to pay $200, from $50.
Posted by The Straits Times on Sunday, January 17, 2016


The Ministry of National Development (MND) and Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) revealed the higher penalties last week, in response to media queries.

"The higher fines help to deter abled people from using the accessible lots. People with disabilities will then not be deprived of such lots," they said in a joint statement.

Accessible parking spaces are about 11/2 times the size of regular ones. To use them, motorists must display a label identifying them as a person with disabilities (Class 1) or caregiver (Class 2). Caregivers are allowed to occupy the lots for up to 60 minutes, to allow them to pick up or drop off a person with disabilities.

In 2014, 1,229 Class 2 parking labels were issued, 62 per cent more than the 757 in 2010.

Over the same period, the number of Class 1 parking labels given to disabled drivers increased by 39 per cent, from 271 to 377.

The Government said last year it is looking to tighten the way these labels are issued, following a spike in users and feedback about the shortage of such reserved spaces.

Earlier this month, ST reported on how a wheelchair user had difficulty getting into his car, which was parked in a spot for the disabled, after a taxi was parked next to his car. The story reached over 477,000 users on Facebook, and was shared more than 3,000 times.

Besides stiffer fines, the Government is looking to do more. The MSF and SG Enable, a government-established agency to help people with disabilities, are piloting a new design of accessible parking labels to boost visibility and help in enforcement.

The new labels, currently used by members of the Handicaps Welfare Association (HWA), are set to be introduced in the middle of the year.

The authorities said public awareness campaigns have helped reduce the number of offences.

The Housing Board does not track offences specific to illegal parking in disabled spaces in the 1,800 or so carparks it operates.

But at carparks run by the Urban and Redevelopment Authority, fewer have been booked for such offences. In 2013, there were 237 summonses issued, but this has dropped to 175 in 2014, and 153 last year. URA operates 134 off-street carparks, as well as other kerbside ones around the island.

"Although the numbers may be small, the inconvenience that unauthorised parking causes for people with disabilities is significant at the time of need," said MND and MSF.

HWA president Edmund Wan said stiffer fines would help deter offenders as it "hurts them in the pocket", but would not eliminate the problem completely.

He said HWA is looking to run a public education campaign this year to raise awareness.

Mr Dexter Goh, 57, a wheelchair user who drives a car, said every few months he encounters an incident where a disabled parking space is misused. This is better than five years ago, when he came across a case every few weeks.

Still, Mr Goh, an administrative executive, said: "We need the lots because of the extra space, so that we can open the car doors fully, and get in from our wheelchairs."





Wheelchair user Cai Zhenquan could not get back into his car after lunch as a taxi was parked next to his vehicle in a parking lot for the disabled. The offender only showed up in the evening.
Posted by The Straits Times on Monday, January 4, 2016




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Let's talk about policy failures and the elected presidency

January 18, 2016, 8:05 pm
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On Friday, President Tony Tan Keng Yam delivered an address to open the 13th Parliament, in which he highlighted the need for political change and referred to the elected presidential system. In this article written before that presidential address, the writer calls for a U-turn on the elected presidency.
By Kishore Mahbubani, Published The Straits Times, 18 Jan 2016

It is now January 2016. Singapore's jubilee year SG50 is over. SG51 has begun. We must now begin preparing for SG100.

To do so, we must switch gears, going from celebration to reflection. We must think hard about new approaches and policies we need to adopt to keep Singapore successful.

One thing is absolutely certain. If we believe that we can sail into the next 50 years with the same set of policies that made us successful in the first 50 years, we are headed for trouble.

We could very well replicate the Kodak experience. Kodak was once one of the world's most successful and admired companies. It became complacent. It refused to change course when circumstances changed. Today, Kodak is history.

To begin our process of reflection, we should do an objective audit of our successes and failures over the first 50 years. Of all the countries in the world, we can be the boldest in doing such an objective audit, as our successes far outnumber our failures. As I said in a Huffington Post article ("Why Singapore is the World's Most Successful Society"), Singapore can well claim to be the most successful nation in human history. With such a sterling record, we have little to fear about speaking about our failures.

Yet, it is also a fact that we have been reluctant to speak about our failures. To the best of my knowledge, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has been the most open in speaking about our mistakes. As he said during the heat of the 2011 General Election campaign: "We're sorry we didn't get it exactly right, but I hope you'll understand and bear with us, because we're trying our best to fix the problems. We made mistakes, we have slip-ups. We must apologise, acknowledge, put it right."

It was truly honourable for PM to apologise for mistakes made by the Government. However, when we do our objective audit of successes and failures, we should not feel any obligation to apologise for previous errors. Eliciting apologies is not the objective of this audit. Indeed, it is human to err. As we are human, we have naturally committed errors. Some initially successful policies can turn out to be errors when they are mechanically and unthinkingly applied even after circumstances have changed.

STOP AT TWO POLICY

Take our population policy, for example. Initially, our policy of "stop at two" was remarkably successful. The Stop at Two campaign ran from 1972 (when the crude birth rate was 23.1 per 1,000) to 1987 (by which time it had fallen to 16.6 per 1,000) . Given its success, we kept on going with it. Sadly, we woke up too late to realise that it had been too successful. Hence, when we finally made the U-turn and tried to encourage people to have more babies, we were too late. The momentum towards falling fertility rates, and eventually population reduction, had become too strong.

Should we blame someone for not making the U-turn fast enough? No! We should absolutely not do so. The policymakers then were making decisions based on the best evidence and knowledge they had. Also, when we turn this audit into a blame game, people will naturally become reluctant to open up and speak about their mistakes.

Yet, it is very healthy for both individuals and societies to admit to their failures. I recently read the speech Steve Jobs gave at the Stanford Commencement ceremony in June 2005. It is a truly moving speech. In it, he admits that he was "a very public failure" when he first got fired from Apple. He even thought about running away rather than confronting his failures. After some reflection, it began to dawn on him that "getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me". In short, learning from failure can be a reinvigorating experience.

THE DANGER OF A ROGUE PRESIDENT

To get the process going, it may be best to start on a bold note. We must be prepared to consider whether some of our "sacred cow" policies may have indeed become failures, even though the intentions and goals behind them may have been perfectly valid. Let me suggest one such policy that we should revisit: the elected presidency.

The intention behind setting up the elected presidency was perfectly honourable. As Singapore has accumulated significant reserves, a clear danger had emerged that a rogue government could be elected that would spend away all these hard-earned reserves. Hence, an elected presidency was created so that a "second key" would be needed and the president's consent required before the Government of the day could spend past reserves. In theory, this idea could not be faulted.

In practice, it may turn out to be faulty. While we worried about a rogue government in the past, we did not consider the possibility that a rogue president could be elected. It is true that democratic electorates can display wisdom. They demonstrated this when they gave the People's Action Party government a solid mandate in the 2015 elections. Sadly, it is also true that democratic electorates can display a lack of wisdom. Populations do succumb to charming, charismatic and populist politicians. We saw this in Thailand when then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was elected. Why should a population not vote for a populist leader who promises to improve their lives immediately with cash handouts?

It is true that our elected presidency does not allow the president to open the coffers with his single key. Yet, the election of a figure who is opposed to the responsible government in power can create painful political tensions. As many democracies, including some in our region, have fallen under the spell of populist politicians, it would be a mistake to assume that Singapore is naturally immune to this.

Let me add here that I am not the first to suggest that our policy of an elected presidency should be revisited. Janadas Devan and Ho Kwon Ping published an article on Sept 3, 2011 in The Straits Times saying that the 2011 presidential election here "was a divisive and highly politicised affair. Two words describe its outcome: confused and unfortunate".

LET PARLIAMENT ELECT PRESIDENT

Hence, we should seriously consider the possibility that the time has come to do a U-turn on the elected presidency. Here, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We can go back to the old practice of having the Parliament elect the president. Many good presidents were chosen by Parliament, including Mr Yusof Ishak, Dr Benjamin Sheares, Mr Devan Nair and Mr Wee Kim Wee.

At the same time, there is wisdom in Singapore choosing presidents through Parliament. This will enable us to choose them on the basis of merit, not popularity. In a multiracial society such as ours, there is also merit in rotating the president among the different ethnic groups. For example, our last Malay president, Mr Yusof Ishak, was president from 1965 to 1970. The time may have come for another Malay president.

Founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, in an interview with The Straits Times on the elected presidency on Aug 12, 1999, also noted the importance of presidents coming from minority communities. He said: "I think it's time to remind Singaporeans that we are a multiracial community. And it's also good. It's a symbolic expression of our national identity."

We will not be the first Commonwealth democracy to see the merit of having a member from a minority to be the symbol of the nation. From 1999 to 2005, Canada had Ms Adrienne Clarkson, a Chinese immigrant from Hong Kong, as its governor-general.

Similarly, New Zealand has chosen members from minorities to be its governor-general: Sir Anand Satyanand (2006-2011) is Indo-Fijian and Sir Jeremiah Mateparae (2011-ongoing) is Maori.

There is no doubt that we need to have a robust debate in Singapore before we change course on the elected presidency. The people must be psychologically prepared before any such big change is made. And when we have the debate, we should not make it a "blame game". The authors of the elected presidency had honourable intentions. Yet, it may not have turned out to be one of our wisest policy decisions.

If we can admit that even a "sacred cow" policy such as the elected presidency may have been a failure, we will open the doors for others to speak out about other possible failures in the first 50 years of our independence. As Steve Jobs said, admitting to failures can provide a sense of relief and allow us to move on.

To understand the power of this point, look at the opposite case. For reasons that continue to elude me, most contemporary Japanese governments are reluctant to admit that the Japanese governments of 1930 to 1945 made serious mistakes in the build-up to World War II. This reluctance means that each Japanese government has to bear the cross of defending previous governments.

We should avoid this mistake. Instead, we should tell our historians and public policy scholars: please feel free to discuss our failures of the past 50 years. This will liberate us from the past and allow us to focus on the future.

The writer is Dean of the LKY School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, and the author of Can Singapore Survive?




Posted by Kishore Mahbubani on Sunday, January 17, 2016




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HDB living captured in picture book

January 18, 2016, 8:20 pm
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Amateur shutterbug wants to show the world unique aspects of public housing in Singapore
By Leong Weng Kam, Senior Writer, The Straits Times, 18 Jan 2016

For about a year, Chinese newspaper journalist Xu Fugang, 56, went to Housing Board estates all over Singapore to capture how most people here live, work and play, usually on his days off or weekends.

The amateur photographer and Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao executive sub-editor, who has been fascinated by life in Singapore's public housing estates since moving here nearly 20 years ago, did that from July 2014.

The result was more than 5,000 candid shots, showing residents of different races rushing to work or school, and children at creches or playgrounds. They also include shots of Malay weddings and funeral wakes at void decks, as well as night markets and sports and cultural activities.

From these, 800 colourful photos were compiled into a 500-page book titled The HDB Lifestyle In Singapore 新加坡组屋生活, which Mr Xu self-published as his contribution to Singapore's Golden Jubilee last year.

"Singapore's success in public housing in the past 50 years is world-renowned, but I think how Singaporeans of different races, cultural backgrounds and religious beliefs live so harmoniously together is even more unique and that is what I want to show in my book," he said.

He stressed that the book is not just about buildings but also about Singaporeans, about 80 per cent of who live in HDB flats. "Nowhere in the world can you see people of different races living so well and comfortably together with all the amenities they need, such as schools, banks, shops, places of worship and even hospitals and clinics so nearby," he said.

"And there are also no racial and religious conflicts among them and security in the estates is generally good," he added.

But this is not obvious to visitors, as he discovered recently.

"A few years ago, a Chinese official told me he saw nothing special about Singapore after his short visit here, saying he saw only modern buildings, which there are plenty of back in China. Then I realised that he didn't see what I saw."

That gave him the idea for his book. "I know what living in the heartland is like and I wish to show this unique Singaporean way of life to the world, especially through the lens of a new immigrant like myself," he said.

Born in Sichuan, China, he graduated with degrees in political economy, from Sichuan, and business management, from Australia, and worked in the Middle East and Europe before moving here in 1997 as regional manager of a China-based medical equipment firm.

In 2000, he joined Lianhe Zaobao as a business reporter and became a sub-editor in 2008. Also in 2000, he became a Singaporean and bought a four-room HDB flat in Ang Mo Kio for $250,000. He and his wife, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner who runs a clinic in Ang Mo Kio, have been living in the flat since. They have a daughter.

Mr Xu has divided his book into seven sections, which takes into account the comfortable living environment Singaporeans enjoy; the multi-racial, cultural and religious activities they are involved in; the comprehensive amenities as well as the thoughtful way in which the estates are run; and the roles played by grassroots organisations and community groups.

"As I got up close to the estates during my photo shoots for the book, I noticed details, such as posters asking residents to talk softly after 10pm, and there were temporary, air-conditioned study rooms specially erected for students in the neighbourhood whenever an estate was going through upgrading and noise from the construction works became unbearable," said Mr Xu.

Lianhe Zaobao columnist and former associate editor Giam Meng Tuck said in the book's preface that HDB estates are not only unique to Singapore but are also the result of social engineering that one cannot find in any political textbook.

He praised Mr Xu's efforts to show the "unique living lifestyle in the public housing estates which all Singaporeans can identify with".

Mr Xu, who has published pictorial books on the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, said he is working on a book on Singapore's best-known photographer, the late Yip Cheong Fun, and hopes to get it out soon.


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Learn life-saving skills in just five hours

January 18, 2016, 8:44 pm
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New programme aims to have a trained and certified first aider in every home by 2020
By Adrian Lim, The Straits Times, 18 Jan 2016

Members of the public can now learn first-aid skills, including how to carry out cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), in just five hours.

Under the new Citizen First Responder Training Programme launched yesterday, they can also learn how to use an automated external defibrillator (AED) to help someone who has a heart attack.

The Citizen First Aid Programme was launched today and we are pleased to be the first to make available the Citizen...
Posted by Singapore Red Cross on Saturday, January 16, 2016


While most first-aid courses require about three days, or 24 hours, of training, this shorter programme aims to equip the community with essential life-saving skills.

Participants will be taught how to use a first-aid box and deal with eight common conditions, including stroke, fainting, heat exhaustion, burns and fractures.

They will pick up the skills through hands-on practice and be put through a short theory and practical test to earn a certificate in the course, designed by the National Resuscitation Council and the National First Aid Council.

The goal of the National First Aid Council is to have at least one trained and certified first aider in every home by 2020.

The new course was launched yesterday by Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean at the fifth National Life Saving Day, held at the Pasir Ris Sports & Recreation Centre.

Mr Teo said about 1,400 cases of cardiac arrest here happen outside hospital settings every year.

Five years ago, the survival rate was 2.5 per cent, but this has improved to 11 per cent, Mr Teo said. This is because the rate at which bystanders have helped by performing CPR has doubled from 22 per cent five years ago to 42 per cent, he added.

"This was done by having more people trained and also... the SCDF (Singapore Civil Defence Force) dispatch centre asking and guiding people on how to give first-response assistance to the person whom they are reporting for," said Mr Teo.

The Singapore Red Cross Academy is the first to offer the Citizen First Responder course, with plans to roll it out to all 84 accredited CPR-AED training centres in time.

National Resuscitation Council chairman V. Anantharaman estimates that at least 500,000 people will need to be trained annually to reach the target of having one first aider in every home.

"Every year, nearly 3,000 people die from coronary heart disease or heart attack in Singapore, with about half of these people collapsing before they can reach a hospital," he added.

Yesterday, 400 residents from the Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC underwent training to become the first batch of participants to be certified as first aiders under the scheme.

The certifications are valid for two years and can be renewed by attending a refresher course.

• Those who wish to attend the course, which costs $45, can contact the Singapore Red Cross on 6664-0565 from 9am to 6pm during weekdays.



Customer saved eatery owner's life
By Adrian Lim, The Straits Times, 18 Jan 2016

The owner of the famous Authentic Hock Lam Street Popular Beef Kway Teow has a customer to thank for saving his life.

Mr Francis Tan, 63, was at his restaurant along Seah Street on Feb 9, 2014, when he collapsed and suffered a cardiac arrest.

None of the restaurant staff or customers knew how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

But one of them, business analyst Edwin Huang, 32, who was having lunch at the restaurant that day, stepped forward to help anyway.

WATCH: In 2014, Mr Edwin Huang saved a man's life by performing CPR despite not being CPR-certified. He was given...
Posted by The New Paper on Sunday, January 17, 2016


Over the phone, he was directed by the Singapore Civil Defence Force to start chest compressions.

"His tongue was sticking out and he looked very pale. As I was not trained, I was unsure of how much pressure to apply. I was afraid of damaging his organs," said Mr Huang.

The paramedics arrived about seven minutes later and took over.

Mr Tan's 35-year-old son, who is also named Edwin, said: "Without Edwin's help, my father would either be gone or brain dead. We really appreciate what he has done."

Yesterday, the elder Mr Tan was reunited with Mr Huang at the third Survivor Awards Ceremony, which recognises members of the public who have given first aid to those who have suffered a cardiac arrest.

It was held at the Pasir Ris Sports and Recreation Centre, as part of National Life Saving Day.

Mr Tan, who has recovered after a heart bypass operation and more than 20 days in hospital, has since closed the Seah Street branch.

His son now runs the sole branch in North Canal Road.

The elder Mr Tan said: "Edwin saved my life. I've thanked him and hugged him many times."




POLICE OFFICERS PERFORMED CPR AND SAVED MAN IN COURTROOM #SPFPRIDEIt was the morning of 27 November 2015. Deputy Team...
Posted by Singapore Police Force on Monday, January 18, 2016




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Singaporeans must unite against terror: DPM Teo Chee Hean

January 18, 2016, 10:59 pm
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Teo Chee Hean urges all to continue to strengthen nation's racial, religious harmony
By Chong Zi Liang, The Straits Times, 18 Jan 2016

All religious groups in Singapore reject extremism, radicalism and violence, and will condemn those who carry out a terror attack here, said Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean yesterday.

"Rather than allowing an attack to strike fear and splinter our society, we must unite against any such attack, stand together as one people, and emerge stronger," he added as he spoke about racial and religious harmony at a fund-raising dinner for the new Church of Transfiguration, located in his constituency.

His remarks came hours after it was reported that Malaysian police had arrested four terror suspects, one of whom had allegedly planned a suicide attack in Kuala Lumpur, and three days after deadly blasts in Jakarta killed eight people. Both incidents have been linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Several ministers have warned of possible terror attacks here in recent days, and President Tony Tan Keng Yam reiterated this last Friday at the opening of Parliament.

Yesterday, Mr Teo said the longstanding racial and religious harmony in Singapore, one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world, did not happen by chance.

Pioneer Singaporeans, who lived through racial and religious strife, had decided that each community would not "insist on the primacy of its race, language or practices".

Religious groups, he said, have also rejected foreign teachings and practices that do not suit the multiracial and multi-religious context here - in particular, those that are disrespectful to other religions or encourage communities to live apart.

As a result, said Mr Teo, people can practise their religion and carry on their traditions freely, even as the common spaces where people come together are expanded.

But each generation will have to choose anew the type of society they want to live in.

Urging Singaporeans to heed the "precious" lessons from 50 years of independence, he said: "For the next 50 years, it is up to us and our children to decide what kind of society we want to be... This can be by the choices of leaders, or by the individual choices we make every day, whether to live in harmony, try and integrate with others or whether we choose to live separately. So, we can make those choices ourselves. We can succumb to exclusivity, sectarianism and drift apart, or we can reinforce the choice that our forefathers made to live together, and continue to celebrate and strengthen our racial and religious harmony."

Mr Teo praised religious institutions here for working with Singaporeans and the Government in nation-building, especially in the areas of character formation, education, healthcare and charity.

Later, Catholic Archbishop William Goh told the 1,700 people at the dinner that the Catholic Church would continue to partner the Government in promoting harmony.


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Japan's deflated generation

January 18, 2016, 11:12 pm
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Those turning 20 this year in Japan have known only an economy of falling prices. What damage have two decades of deflation, anaemic wage growth and lower job security done to their ambitions?
By Leo Lewis, Published The Sunday Times, 17 Jan 2016

With the magnificent Meiji shrine behind them, kimono brocades catching the sun and their coming-of-age ceremony about to begin in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, seven Japanese friends hold an urgent meeting, mobile phones in hand. Thumbs move in a blur as staff urge them to hurry inside.

Rival thrift sites flicker across screens. One of the group shouts in triumph: If they get to the restaurant by 3pm with the right coupons, they will save 1,220 yen (S$15) collectively on the after-party bill.

They agree and dash into the hall.

Everyone can relax now, one of them explains, because money has been saved.

This generation of 20-year-olds celebrating their coming of age across the country is the first to have lived their entire lives with the economy in a broad state of deflation. They think small. They trust only with caution. They see the future as a string of cash-draining emergencies.

"Our parents had the 1980s bubble, we have deflation. They went a bit crazy. We are coldly practical," says Tokyo student Ayako Imaeda.

"Both generations have had their way of thinking changed deeply by the economy."

Whatever the social narrative of the ceremony, it has been undermined by two decades of anaemic wage increases, lower job security and lacklustre consumption, says Tokyo University professor Hiroshi Ishida. Economic factors have stripped away the incentives for young Japanese people to leave home, buy cars, marry, have children, take risks and generally grow up, he says.

To an extent, the same is true in other parts of the developed world.

In Japan, however, the phenomenon is especially bad news for the growth reforms, known as Abenomics, and for the Japanese leadership's dream of priming the nation for an era of entrepreneurship, innovation and investment.

LIFELONG PHENOMENON

Coming-of-age day, a public holiday, is held on the second Monday of each January and prompts national reflection and demographic anxiety. The seijin shiki is a celebration for Japanese youth who, over the past 12 months, have turned 20 - the age at which they gain the right to vote, smoke and drink.

Thanks to falling birth rates, there are fewer of them each year and an ever-greater population of retirees for them to support.

This year's celebrants, born in 1995 and 1996, are the first to have spent their entire journey to adulthood in an economy of mostly falling consumer prices.

Their lives have been so infused by the phenomenon that several say deflation - one of the main obstacles to growth through the 2000s - has evolved into a source of low-level apprehension that limits ambition.

Engineer Takuya Okuyama, who joined Hitachi in 2013, says: "It has been the norm for as far back as I can remember.

"Even if there was a negative impact from deflation, I would not be able to recognise it because I have nothing to compare it against."

That does not mean the deflation generation sees an end in sight.

But the young are not convinced, even with last November's figures showing a 0.3 per cent year-on-year rise in overall prices, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) continuing to target 2 per cent inflation and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declaring that Japan is "no longer in a deflationary period".

Prices in Japan began falling at the time that this year's 20-year-olds were born, and the fruitless attempts to drag Japan from deflation has seeped into their psyche, say academics.

The phenomenon has not just eroded faith in the enriching powers of the economy, but left this generation sharply aware that its leaders are neither all-knowing nor all-powerful.

Another attendee at the ceremony, Yusuke Hamada, says: "My parents believed that the government would make their lives good and they did get richer. The lesson we have learnt is that we need to save as much as we can and take as little risk as possible."

The critical difficulty faced by Mr Abe and the BOJ, according to academics, is that they are engaged in a form of psychological warfare with the public on inflation.

They need to persuade people that prices and wages are indeed rising to give that assertion any kind of sustainability.

Unfortunately, says Tokyo student Nozomi Hasegawa, the deflation generation is a tough audience.

"My age group has only ever lived with bad economic news," she says.

"We've seen different Japanese governments fail to revitalise the economy, fail to stop deflation and fail to improve the prospects for working women."

Deflation's clearest crime has been to squeeze company profits.

As well as suppressing wages, it is blamed, at least in part, for the steady disintegration of the job-for-life corporate culture.

Falling prices gave civil servants and those with stable jobs in large corporations a sense of rising wealth, but for everyone else - 99 per cent of Japanese companies are small and medium-sized - it has produced a sense of insecurity.

Japan now has a generation of newly enfranchised adults that become stressed over a price difference of five yen between two doughnuts at rival stores, keep count of their micro-savings in notebooks, but struggle to explain what they want to do with the money.

Author Takuro Morinaga, who has prospered by writing best-selling guides to frugal living, says: "Deflation has made Japan unable to think. The generation turning 20 does not dream big but looks for small moments of happiness in their current situation.

"They don't save for something big, but as insurance."

YEN-PINCHING

The deflation generation will soon enter Japan's job market, doing so with only a modest expectation of wage increases despite the tightening labour environment.

Among nearly two dozen students and workers interviewed by the Financial Times, none found the idea of zero interest rates unusual. Few imagine having wealthier lives than their parents, and barely any foresee owning shares.

Only one said they would consider starting their own company.

A fashion school student attending the coming-of-age ceremony in Shibuya says: "I often surprise myself. I am more conservative than my mother. I am more conservative than my grandmother. She lived in a time of war."

There are striking consistencies in attitudes.

All the interviewees, most either working full-time or part-time and earning about 1,000 yen per hour, were asked to choose between two train routes to the same destination. One journey costs 200 yen, and the other costs 170 yen but takes an extra 15 minutes.

All but one of the 20-year-olds took the cheaper option.

Ms Imaeda says: "I guess we've got our values of time and money mixed up, but this question isn't a theory. My friends and I have this discussion all the time.

"Sometimes it is over a 10 yen difference in price. Probably we feel we are saving to buy things - for me, it's nice clothes or a bag - but the importance of that 30 yen is the saving itself."

Japan Women's University labour economics expert Machiko Osawa says the impulse of Ms Imaeda and others to pursue micro-savings is the culmination of years of psychological pummelling.

One of the long-term effects of deflation and economic stagnation, she says, has been the growth of non-regular employment and the tumbling expectations of any kind of security. Savings are part of the defence mechanism.

Yokohama student Teru Kohara says: "Deflation lives in our minds and has become normal.

"There are many effects - a lot of them we don't even realise and a lot that we cannot decide whether they are good or bad.

"(But) I am sure that if you gave me 100,000 yen now, I would save 99 per cent of it."

Professor Osawa says that as a consequence, young people are not taking enough risks.

"Our generation learnt the lesson that if you take a risk, you can always get back to a position of safety," she says.

"It is not so easy for Japan's 20-year-olds. There is no real market for mid-career recruitment, so you know that if you quit your job, the second one is not going to be as good as the first.

"In society, the young generation should be risk-taking and innovative. In Japan, they are just afraid."

Ms Imaeda and others echo that criticism of corporate Japan and what they call its inflexibility.

Deflation, she says, has also heightened her awareness of opportunities sliding away from the country's economy.

She adds: "I think things will improve until the Olympics in 2020, but if we as a nation haven't taken every chance we can between now and then, there will not be any chances afterwards."

SAFETY FIRST

For students Eiju Obata and Akira Niki, neither of whom plans to move out of their parents' homes, safety is the priority rather than wealth.

Japan's economy has left them with an ambition no greater than preserving the quality of life they have. "Our parents did have a much easier time," says Mr Obata.

"My mother got a job at Mitsubishi after graduating from art school. That would be impossible now. People made more money at that time. They consumed more, they bought more things."

According to Prof Osawa, the persistence of falling prices means there has rarely been a time during these students' formative years when they have not been exposed to negative economic news.

Several of the Shibuya coming-of-age graduates say that the euphoria surrounding Abenomics has been more prolonged than other phases of recovery.

But none was able to name a specific monetary, fiscal or structural reform of the past three years that had directly benefited them.

"It's no wonder my students are so price sensitive," says Prof Osawa. "They have had a constant flow of horrible information about their economy.

"They are being told about people going bankrupt or retiring with no money. They see a welfare system built around lifetime employment which has not adapted to the change."

She adds: "They are told, from a young age, not to be extravagant and, when they grow up, not to try to keep up with the Joneses."

Despite the misgivings, Mr Abe and the BOJ appear to have given themselves an opening in which to convince the deflation generation to put faith in rising prices and a return to an economic normality they have never known.

The 20-year olds interviewed may not have liked the idea of starting a business, but Japan is riding a wave of new businesses.

Between 2010 and 2014, according to figures from Tokyo Shoko Research, the annual number of newly established businesses jumped from 99,780 to 119,552.

Prof Ishida suggests that some young people may be shedding their fears of being disadvantaged by the economy. For eight years, he has tracked a panel of 4,800 people aged between 20 and 40.

The number of those saying they had "no hope" in society has floated above 50 per cent since 2008.

In 2013 - the first full year of Abenomics - that dipped to 41 per cent.

However, the anxiety remains.

Ms Hasegawa, the student from Tokyo, says: "The government wants us to believe in an economic growth situation that we have only ever read about in books or heard about from our parents.

"Even if it comes true, I'm not going to stop saving."

FINANCIAL TIMES




They think small. They trust only with caution.
Posted by Financial Times on Thursday, January 14, 2016




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Smart machines 'will displace millions of jobs in next five years'

January 19, 2016, 12:09 am
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Rise of the Robots Will Eliminate More Than 5 Million Jobs
The Straits Times, 19 Jan 2016

DAVOS • Disruptive labour market changes, including the rise of robots and artificial intelligence, will result in a net loss of 5.1 million jobs over the next five years in 15 leading countries, according to an analysis published in Davos yesterday.

The projection by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which is holding its annual meeting in the Swiss ski resort this week, assumes a total loss of 7.1 million jobs, offset by a gain of two million new positions.

The 15 economies covered by the survey - namely Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Turkey, Britain and the United States, plus the ASEAN and Gulf Cooperation Council groups - account for about 65 per cent of the world's total workforce.

Two-thirds of the projected losses are expected to fall in the office and administrative sectors as smart machines take over more routine tasks, according to latest findings, which are based on a global survey of personnel and strategy executives.



The WEF has made "the fourth industrial revolution" - a topic covering robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing and biotechnology - the official theme of this year's Davos meeting, which runs from tomorrow to Saturday.

The "Future of Jobs" report concluded that jobs would be displaced in every industry, although the impact would vary considerably, with the biggest negative losses likely to be in healthcare, reflecting the rise of telemedicine, followed by energy and financial services.

Women will be the biggest losers as their jobs are often concentrated in low-growth or declining areas such as sales, office and administrative roles, the report said.

While men will see about one job gained for every three lost over the next five years, women face more than five jobs lost for every one gained.

A separate international survey published yesterday said that four out of 10 young people believe machines will be able to do their jobs within a decade. And nearly half of young workers surveyed in Western countries said their education did not prepare them to do their jobs.

The skills gap is especially pronounced in Europe, according to a poll of 9,000 16- to 25-year-olds in nine of the world's biggest nations commissioned by Indian business and software services firm Infosys.

Almost 80 per cent globally said they had to learn new skills not taught to them in school and that rapid technology change - the threat of being overtaken by robots or smart systems - required constant learning of fresh skills to compensate.

REUTERS




What are the skills you'll need to get a job in 2020? Our new report explores the future of jobs.
Posted by World Economic Forum on Monday, January 18, 2016














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IDA, MDA merging to seize new opportunities

January 19, 2016, 6:49 pm
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New entity IMDA will also deepen regulatory capabilities for converged sector
By Irene Tham, Tech Editor, The Straits Times, 19 Jan 2016

The infocomm and media authorities will merge later this year to better position Singapore to seize new opportunities in these converging areas.

The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and the Media Development Authority (MDA) will become the Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA) in the second half of this year.

To learn more about the reorganisation of IDA and MDA, you can refer here: media release http://bit.ly/1Q8jegc and Minister Yaacob's opening speech http://bit.ly/1OzIUzO
Posted by Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) on Sunday, January 17, 2016


MDA chief executive officer Gabriel Lim will helm the IMDA.

The restructuring follows the launch last August of the Infocomm Media 2025 plan, which charts the ways technology will be used to transform how people live, learn, work and play through 2025.

Driverless vehicles, underground data centres and home-integrated sensors are some of the ideas outlined in the 10-year plan, the first to take into account how media and infocomm interests have become intertwined.

"Here in Singapore, we are excited by the new opportunities thrown up by the convergence of the infocomm and media sectors," said Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim yesterday.

He was delivering the opening address at a forum on "Internet of Things in Smart Sustainable Cities: A New Age of Smarter Living" at Suntec Singapore.

The forum was organised by the International Telecommunication Union and the IDA.

Touching on the Infocomm Media 2025 plan - which the new IMDA will implement - Dr Yaacob said it will unleash the power to transform Singapore's economy, its service and manufacturing industries, and government services.

The newly merged entity will also deepen the regulatory capabilities for a converged infocomm media sector.

The Government notes a trend of more companies offering, say, content on TV as well as on mobile devices like laptops, tablets and phones.

Dr Yaacob said: "How do you ensure that both the TV and the mobile device are subjected to the same set of rules, to ensure a level playing field and to safeguard consumer interests across all ages?

"Rather than waiting for the trend to supersede us, we might as well take advantage of what is happening now and put together a converged regulator that can actually deal with that environment."

IMDA will also look into amending legislation such as the Broadcasting Act, Telecommunications Act and Films Act.

For instance, decisions will be made on whether Singtel and StarHub need to apply for just one licence in the converged telecoms and media space, and whether online video streaming services like Netflix need to apply for a licence.

"We're looking at the legislation keenly now. Whatever work we have started on our policy changes will continue," he said.

The Personal Data Protection Commission will come under IMDA to ensure that consumers' data is protected even as it is being analysed for, say, targeted marketing to drive business goals.

A Government Technology Organisation (GTO) will be set up in the second half of this year to lead the Government's digitisation efforts. It will take over the heavy engineering functions of IDA's Government Chief Information Office, which will be dissolved.

Its engineers will also support the roll-out of smart nation projects including driverless vehicles and home-integrated sensors.

IDA managing director Jacqueline Poh will head the new GTO.





IDA-MDA merger will ensure fairness to all with streamlining of laws: Experts
By Irene Tham, The Straits Times, 19 Jan 2016

The biggest benefit from the merger of Singapore's infocomm and media regulators is the streamlining of laws to ensure fairness to all without strangling innovation, said lawyers and companies.

Singapore's media laws now subject local brick-and-mortar content distributors - including Singtel and StarHub - to far stricter regulations than overseas players that provide content online.

The latter include Apple iTunes, Google Play and Netflix, which have set up e-stores in Singapore.

But going forward, the new Infocommunications Media Development Authority (IMDA) - from the merger of the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and the Media Development Authority (MDA) - will oversee the amendment of the laws, which have been under review since 2012.

Lawyer Rajesh Sreenivasan, a technology and telecoms partner at Rajah & Tann, said the role of the enlarged regulator is significant as threats to the traditional media business have come from the Internet players.

"IMDA will now be able to provide regulatory oversight and analyse the impact of such players across the media, telecoms and IT sectors in Singapore holistically," he said.

"It will lead to the streamlining of the legislative and licensing framework governing infocommunications and media industry players."

Singtel group chief executive Chua Sock Koong concurred, saying the merger is timely and will help accelerate its effort to innovate in both sectors.

"The new IMDA is well-positioned to drive the national innovation agenda and ensure a consistent regulatory framework," she said.

Other companies have also given the merger the thumbs up.

StarHub chief executive Tan Tong Hai said: "It is no longer possible to draw a clear line between the infocommunications and media spaces. The (merger) of IDA and MDA is certainly moving in the right direction, especially as Singapore evolves into a smart nation."

Mr Vignesa Moorthy, chief executive of ViewQwest, said: "The merger is a sign of the times where you can no longer separate content from technology. The two must go hand in hand."

The fibre broadband service provider recently started selling solutions for smart homes.

Veteran local entrepreneur David Ng, now boss of six-month-old mobile game start-up goGame, said: "The converged agency will have a fuller view of the challenges facing the industry when setting policies."

This will in turn allow it to respond decisively to opportunities and challenges when they arise, especially in the burgeoning mobile game creation business, he added.


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Give 'green' $2 hongbao this CNY

January 19, 2016, 7:08 pm
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The Straits Times, 19 Jan 2016

New notes, as well as good-as-new $2 notes, will be made available for Chinese New Year at retail banks from tomorrow (20 Jan), said the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Introduced in 2013, good-as-new notes are clean and crisp notes retrieved immediately after the previous Chinese New Year.

Last year, 17 per cent of all $2 notes issued by MAS during Chinese New Year consisted of good-as-new notes - up from 11 per cent in 2013.

This Chinese New year, be sure to fill your red packets with crisp "good-as-new" $2 notes! These notes and brand new...
Posted by Ask for Good as New Notes on Monday, January 18, 2016


MAS said the initiative has been well received and that it will continue to work with the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) to further promote their use.

Mr Low Kwok Mun, MAS' assistant managing director for finance, risk and currency, saidit has nearly doubled the amount of energy saved from printing fewer $2 notes since the launch of the initiative.

"The energy saved in 2015 could power 100 four-room HDB flats for seven weeks, compared with only four weeks in 2013," he added.

ABS director Ong-Ang Ai Boon said its member banks were happy to see the growing acceptance of good-as-new notes.

This year, pupils from East View Primary School will help spread the word about the $2 notes initiative and how it has helped to save the environment.

In addition, they will encourage their families and relatives to support the initiative.



Overheard on the MRT today...A: "What's the point of recycling $2 notes?"B: "Aiyah, must be the government trying to...
Posted by Ask for Good as New Notes on Monday, January 18, 2016




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Nicoll Drive being raised to stave off rising seas

January 19, 2016, 8:11 pm
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It's first such project undertaken to prepare for impact of climate change on Singapore
By Christopher Tan, Senior Transport Correspondent, The Straits Times, 19 Jan 2016

Nicoll Drive, which hugs the eastern shoreline next to Changi Beach, is being raised in anticipation of rising sea levels triggered by global warming.

The road-raising project - which elevates the 1km, two-lane dual carriage by up to 0.8m - is the first Singapore is undertaking to brace itself for the effects of climate change.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said: "As this stretch of road is located near the coastline, the works are being carried out to minimise the risk of seawater inundation as part of the Government's overall coastal protection measures for climate change adaptation."

The authority said the project is expected to be completed by the middle of this year, and added that it had no immediate plans to raise other roads near the coast.

Experts have warned that rising sea levels will have a devastating impact on Singapore.

In a recent report, research group Climate Central said that even if the world could limit temperature rise to 2 deg C, 130 million people living in coastal areas would be affected by higher sea levels caused by melting polar ice.



An interactive Climate Central map shows parts of Changi Airport, Jurong Island and parts of the west coast under water if global temperatures were to rise by 2 deg C.

Previous studies by retired Professor Wong Poh Poh of the department of geography at the National University of Singapore (NUS) indicated that coastal reservoirs such as Kranji, Sarimbun and Seletar could also be under threat.

Sea water would enter these catchment areas, making the water undrinkable. Prof Wong could not be reached for comment, but assistant professor Daniel Friess of the NUS' Department of Geography said Singapore needs to future-proof its critical infrastructure in the face of climate change.

He said: "Planning for coastal flooding and sea level rise is a challenge in Singapore, as we are projected to experience high rates of sea level rise in this region over the next 100 years.

"We have relatively little space to relocate critical infrastructure... So we will have to come up with integrated and innovative solutions that involve retrofitting infrastructure - such as raising roads - and strengthening coastal defences."

The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) has an entire division devoted to coastal protection.

A BCA spokesman said Phase 1 of the Second National Climate Change Study, completed last year, projects the mean sea level to rise by up to 0.76m by the end of the century. She added that an ongoing "coastal adaptation study", which is expected to be completed by next year, would spell out what needs to be done to prepare for that predicted rise in sea level.

Meanwhile, she said, Singapore is adequately protected from coastal floods for the immediate future.

"About 70-80 per cent of our coastal areas already have hard walls or stone embankments, which help protect against coastal erosion," she said, adding that if necessary, these will be reinforced.

She reiterated that the minimum land reclamation height was raised from 3m to 4m above the mean sea level in 2011.

As for Nicoll Drive, the road-raising project is expected to help motorists stay dry during unusually high tides. This happened at least twice - in 1974 and 1999.

In the 1974 incident, which happened on Feb 9, several parts of the city were also submerged - without a single drop of rain.












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Singapore's leadership in advancing the rule of law

January 19, 2016, 10:54 pm
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By Stephen J. Brogan, Published The Straits Times, 19 Jan 2016

Legal scholars, practitioners and corporate leaders from around the world gather in Singapore this week to discuss the important development of the rule of law in the widely predicted "Asian Century".

This prediction depends on the continued surge in global trade and investment led by the world's major corporations and financial institutions.

But this economic globalisation process depends critically on the integrity of legal systems that enforce contracts and protect property from private and public appropriation.

Singapore's economic success is built on the stability and fairness of its legal rules. The world's leading corporations could safely bring their people and capital to the country because they are well-protected by Singapore law.

Singapore sits at the very top of the World Bank's global ratings - No. 1 of 189 countries - for its effectiveness in enforcing contracts and protecting minority investor rights.

It is ranked second in the world in both the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom and the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index, with high marks for its protection of property rights and freedom from corruption.

The investing world has come to appreciate how efficiently and fairly Singapore protects property and investor rights: it is the leading city in the world for new foreign investment projects, according to the Financial Times.

The development of many other Asian countries has been limited precisely because their legal systems are unreliable. The world is awash in low-cost capital that could be deployed to great effect in less-developed Asian countries.

The principal barrier to such investment is legal risk. Without the capital investment needed for economic development, millions of Asians remain needlessly in poverty.

Singapore's larger neighbours, Indonesia and Vietnam, are good examples of countries with abundant natural and human resources that remain undeveloped because these countries do not have legal institutions that can reliably enforce contracts and protect property rights.

If globalisation is to benefit a greater percentage of the world's population, aggressive development of the rule of law is essential.

Legal systems common in underdeveloped nations that only imitate the rule of law but can be arbitrarily abused by those in political power are not sufficient for the investment needs of Asia.

What Asia needs are genuine systems of law administered by impartial, independent and well-trained judges, aided by able members of the Bar who know how to present evidence and legal argument thoughtfully and with integrity.

Singapore has long understood the kind of legal system needed to attract investment. Recognising that its prosperity is tied to the development of its neighbours, the Chief Justice has led the creation of a new Singapore International Commercial Court that will extend the benefits of reliable legal process to the region by accepting disputes arising entirely outside of Singapore. This Court offers a forum staffed not only by judges from Singapore's High Court and Court of Appeal but also by accomplished jurists from around the world with expertise in the substantive law relevant to major commercial actors. The Court currently has 12 international judges from both civil and common law jurisdictions.

This is a visionary step that builds on Singapore's success in establishing itself as a world-class centre for international dispute resolution through the Singapore International Arbitration Centre.

The new court gives global investors in South and South-east Asia a judicial forum with international legal sophistication that can rival any in the world.

It recently began hearing its first case, a US$800 million (S$1.2 billion) dispute between Australian and Indonesian companies concerning a joint venture for the production of coal in Indonesia, to be decided by three highly experienced jurists from Singapore, England and Hong Kong.

In addition to the creation of this new Court, Singapore's Chief Justice is leading an Asia-wide effort to create an Asian Business Law Institute modelled after the American Law Institute. The goal is to create for Asian nations a uniform commercial code and a restatement of principles governing conflicts of law. This initiative recognises and advances the increasing convergence of commercial law around the world, which will provide the framework for global economic development.

By fostering development of its legal institutions and practitioners, Singapore is realising yet another dimension of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew's vision for the country.

After achieving success as a global hub for shipping, trade and finance, Singapore has now become a centre of professional excellence in the law for all of South and South-east Asia. While this well-serves the interests of Singapore's growing legal community, other countries in the region which lack Singapore's legal institutions will be the major beneficiaries of these initiatives in support of the rule of law.

The writer is managing partner of Jones Day, a global law firm with 42 offices in 19 countries, including Singapore.


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The 'We' in our National Pledge

January 19, 2016, 11:07 pm
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This is excerpted from a speech delivered by the director of the Institute of Policy Studies at the Singapore Perspectives conference yesterday, which had the theme 'We'.
By Janadas Devan, Published The Straits Times, 19 Jan 2016

"We" - it is the first word in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States : "We the People…"

It is also the first word in our National Pledge: "We, the citizens of Singapore…"

It is an example of what in modern rhetorical theory has come to be known as a "catachresis" - a linguistic imposition that brings into existence that which it posits. The "we" in "we the people" is the application of a pronoun "used by a speaker to refer to himself or herself and one or more other people considered together", as the Oxford English Dictionary defines "we", to a much larger grouping of people largely unacquainted with each other - in the US, China or Singapore - thus bringing into existence the "imagined community" that we collectively posit by referring to ourselves as "we".

When it was applied by the framers of the United States Constitution to the "people" of the 13 colonies, they in effect claimed for the people the sovereignty that had hitherto reposed in the king - with the royal "we" thus replaced by the popular "we".

The first time we heard "we" used to describe us was in the famous press conference that the founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew gave on the occasion of Singapore's Separation from Malaysia. We all remember the tears he shed that day when he said he would always look back on our leaving Malaysia as "a moment of anguish".

What most of us forget - till we were reminded of it at last year's National Day Parade - was that he had ended the press conference on an altogether different note, with these stirring words: "We are going to have a multiracial nation in Singapore. We will set the example. This is not a Malay nation; this is not a Chinese nation; this is not an Indian nation. Everybody will have his place, equal; language, culture, religion... And finally, let us, really Singaporeans - I cannot call myself a Malaysian now - we unite, regardless of race, language, religion, culture."

"I cannot call myself a Malaysian now" - that transition from one "imagined community", Malaysian, to another, Singaporean, was fraught with tension.

It is too embarrassing 50 years later to recall the pathos of "I cannot call myself a Malaysian now". We cannot understand why that transition from Malaysian to Singaporean should have been difficult.

Let me further illustrate this with another example, this time a statement made on March 17, 1966, barely seven months after Separation: "A national identity for Singapore is not possible and the very idea itself is ludicrous."

Who said that? Lee Siew Choh? Lim Chin Siong? Possible, since the Barisan Sosialis and the Communist Party of Malaya thought Singapore's independence was "phoney". But it was neither Dr Lee Siew Choh nor Mr Lim who uttered this statement.

Perhaps David Marshall then. After all, Mr Marshall authored a number of colourful statements in the course of his career. But alas, this wasn't one among them.

The person who delivered this categorical judgment on the impossibility - the sheer ludicrousness - of a Singaporean "national identity" was none other than S. Rajaratnam, the author of the Singapore National Pledge and the muse of a Singaporean Singapore.

The Straits Times used a stark headline in reporting Mr Rajaratnam's remarks: "Can Singapore Have a Separate National Identity? 'Ludicrous' - Rajaratnam".

The tension I spoke of earlier in referring to Mr Lee's press conference - "I can't call myself a Malaysian now" - can be seen again in the way The Straits Times reported the story. Notice how it took care to say "separate national identity". The word "separate" should have been unnecessary. After all, by definition, national identities are separate. So there is no need to insist: "Singapore cannot have a separate national identity". Separate from what?

The clue is provided in what else Mr Rajaratnam said on March 17, 1966: Reunification with Malaysia was "inevitable", he said. The forces of history will bring Singapore and Malaysia together again, he prophesied.

So you see, the subconscious of The Straits Times then - for it was still a paper serving both Malaysia and Singapore simultaneously - its subconscious probably still held that Singapore could not have a "separate" national identity apart from Malaysia. Separation was still assumed to be temporary. Singapore may be a separate political entity - for a while, at any rate; but it could not have a separate "national identity".

That Mr Rajaratnam too could hold this view in March 1966 is all the more remarkable when one recalls that he had penned the first draft of the National Pledge just the month before, on Feb 18. His name has become inseparably linked to the Pledge, but there is also one other name whom we should remember in connection with the Pledge.

RAJARATNAM'S FIRST DRAFT

The idea for the Pledge in fact originated with Mr Ong Pang Boon, then Education Minister. It was he who first proposed that schoolchildren should have a flag-raising ceremony every day, accompanied by the recitation of a Pledge. And it was he who sought Mr Rajaratnam's advice on the wording of the Pledge.

The draft Mr Rajaratnam first produced read thus: "We, as citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves to forget differences of race, language and religion and become one united people; to build a democratic society where justice and equality will prevail and where we will seek happiness and progress by helping one another." (The emphases added are mine.)

Note first the weak "we, as citizens of Singapore" - as though there is a distinction between "we" and "citizens of Singapore"; as though the "we" here exceeded, went beyond, mere "citizens of Singapore". Might we hear in this subtle hiatus or gap between "we" and "citizens" the conviction that Mr Rajaratnam expressed a month later - that there can be no such thing as a "Singaporean national identity"?

His implicit, perhaps unconscious, logic seemed to be that Singapore may be a separate political entity - with "citizens" to call its own - but its possession of a national identity awaited fulfilment in the not-so-distant future when we are reunited with Malaysia.

We don't have Mr Rajaratnam's re-drafts or Mr Lee Kuan Yew's edits, but the final version that schoolchildren my age first recited on August 24, 1966, six months later - I remember that day clearly, as though it were yesterday; I was in Primary 6 - began definitively and powerfully thus: "We, the citizens of Singapore".

No hiatus or gap between "we" and "citizens". The "we" that we learnt to call ourselves from that day coincided with "citizens of Singapore". We thus came into existence as a collective pronoun: "We".

ACCEPT , NOT FORGET, OUR DIFFERENCES AND THEN GO BEYOND THEM

I draw your attention next to what Mr Rajaratnam's first draft enjoined us to do: "forget differences of race, language and religion".

Forget - meaning erase, extinguish, expunge, obliterate differences of race, language and religion? Can that be possible?

How does one forget differences of language, for instance? Every time I hear a Chinese Singaporean speak Mandarin or Hokkien, I am bound to remember, not forget, that I do not know Mandarin or Hokkien, and that these languages produce world-views quite different from the languages I am acquainted with. And as for forgetting differences among religions, who but an agnostic could have taken that as a serious possibility?

The formulation in the Pledge as we know it - "one united people, regardless of race, language or religion" - is more realistic in its command. It does not deny racial, linguistic or religious differences exist, let alone call for their obliteration. Rather, we are enjoined to go beyond them.

"Remember we are different - and then accept our plurality, set aside our differences, go beyond them," the Pledge urges. That is difficult enough but far more possible than: "Forget our differences - and then make sure you never remember them, erase all memory of our plurality", as the first draft would have demanded of us.

Sometimes, we have to remember our differences in order to go beyond them - as when we make provisions for minority representation in Parliament, for instance. We could have said racial differences don't matter, let's forget them, no need for a Presidential Council for Minority Rights, no need for minority representation in Parliament. And of course if the electorate had then elected only Chinese to Parliament, we would have discovered racial distinctions did matter after all, for the minorities would most certainly have felt excluded.

In the US, the courts have insisted on electoral districts with built-in African-American or Hispanic majorities to ensure minority representatives in legislatures. In Singapore, minorities are more or less evenly distributed throughout the island - so there are no majority Malay or Indian constituencies - but the Constitution guarantees minority representation in Parliament through group representation constituencies.

It remains to be seen which is the better system, but both share a similar recognition: You cannot get E Pluribus Unum - out of many, one - by simply denying that there are many.

"We, as citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves to forget differences of race, language and religion" or "We, the citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves as one united people, regardless of race, language or religion". By choosing the latter, Singapore's founding leaders recognised that we cannot be One without also acknowledging that we are Many, any more than one can produce a rainbow by smudging the different colours.

This is the first and most important thing we should note about the "we" in our Pledge: It does not call for the erasure of differences. We are not enjoined to forget our separate identities. Rather, we are urged to accept our plurality. And we are urged to go beyond them - go beyond our separate racial, linguistic, religious, cultural identities, so as to encompass the imagined community that lies beyond our differences.

Becoming Singaporean, in other words, from the beginning, was never conceived as a matter of subtraction but rather of addition; not a matter of less but of more; not a matter of forgetting our separate identities but of remembering the possibility of a national identity beyond those separate identities.

It is difficult in retrospect to piece together what happened in those six months, between February 1966 (when Mr Rajaratnam penned the first draft of the Pledge) and August 1966 (when we first recited the Pledge as we know it), but somehow our founding leaders - perhaps unknown to themselves, perhaps tentatively - began imagining in those months the possibility of a national Singaporean identity, and became firmer in their conviction that Singapore shall indeed "forever be a sovereign democratic and independent nation", as the Proclamation declares.

For the meaning of the Pledge - the meaning of "we" - was not obvious from the start. The Pledge itself wasn't the National Pledge as we now call it from the word go. Indeed, it wasn't till 1987 that the Pledge even featured in the National Day Parade, when an extended version of the song, We Are Singapore, was sung as the grand finale, together with the recitation of the Pledge. And it wasn't till 1988 that we recited the Pledge with the right fist clenched to the heart, as we do now; before that we raised our right hand as when taking an oath - as indeed the Pledge was initially conceived, an oath taken by schoolchildren before the flag.

The meaning of the Pledge, in other words - the meaning of "we" - accrued as the story of our island-nation unfolded. As we became more confident that a Singaporean national identity was not only possible but was beginning to take shape, the "we" became more substantial and the Pledge became a more powerful statement of our ideals.

It was the future of our own elaboration that imbued our originating symbols and ideals with meaning; our history did not unfold like a macadamised road from our originating symbols and ideals. It was our commitment to the possibility of a national identity - We, the citizens of Singapore - that produced the "we"; we did not begin with a fully conscious "we" that came festooned with a ready-made national identity.

And so should it be over the next 50, 100, 1,000 years: Every moment in our as yet to unfold tale must begin with the decision: We shall exist.

It must always be possible to say "we, the citizens of Singapore"; that the elaboration of a "we" does not require the obliteration of differences - racial, religious or linguistic; that we accept our pluralities - political and social; that becoming a more perfect "we" or acquiring a deeper national identity, shall always be a matter of becoming more than the sum of our parts, not less, addition, not subtraction.

Singapore will undoubtedly face many challenges in its future - political, social, economic. In politics, we will have to learn to accommodate a demand for plurality, for a contest of ideas, for alternative views to be represented in Parliament. In society, we will have to learn to manage new diversities aside from the traditional ones of race, language and religion. In economics, we will have to strive to contain stark differences of income and wealth, and ensure that no part of "we" is left behind.

It was an incredibly brave thing that our founding generation did 50 years ago. The notion that a collection of such diverse peoples could have anything in common was indeed "ludicrous".

But just as God said in Genesis: "Let there be light, and there was light", our founding generation made a decision to exist - "We, the citizens of Singapore" - and so we came into existence. But unlike the "fiat lux", this is a decision that has to be repeated over and over again, emphatically, or "we" literally shall cease to exist.




Singapore’s national pledge — which begins with “We the citizens of Singapore” — did not come festooned with a...
Posted by IPS Commons on Monday, January 18, 2016




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Singapore Perspectives 2016

January 20, 2016, 5:27 am
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IPS Singapore Perspectives Conference 2016: Governance

Policies and leaders must keep up with the times
Political parties must evolve so that country can thrive and survive, says Chan Chun Sing
By Charissa Yong, The Straits Times, 19 Jan 2016

What keeps Singapore leaders awake at night is not whether the People's Action Party (PAP) rules forever but whether Singapore will last forever, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Chan Chun Sing said yesterday.

And at the heart of ensuring the country thrives and survives is good governance, he said.

This, in turn, requires Singapore's leaders to know when to change policies, and themselves, to keep up with the times.

Mr Chan, who is also the labour chief, made the point at a think-tank discussion on how to maintain good governance in an increasingly diverse society.



Panel moderator Warren Fernandez, The Straits Times editor, had asked Mr Chan to define good politics in the light of President Tony Tan Keng Yam's address last Friday. President Tan had said the Government will study ways to improve the political system.

Mr Chan, in his reply, said good governance is crucial if Singapore is to defy the odds of history as small states tend to be short-lived.

"Our concern is not whether the People's Action Party will rule forever. Our larger concern is whether Singapore will last forever.

"Political parties are there to lead, but political parties must evolve in order to make sure the higher goal of sustaining the country is achieved," he said.

This focus on improving Singapore lies at the core of the Government's approach to accommodating the growing diversity of voices in politics here, he said.

The discussion was among four held yesterday at the Institute of Policy Studies' annual Singapore Perspectives conference, which examines the public policy challenges facing the country. About 900 academics, public servants and students attended the conference.

During the discussion, panellist and political commentator Eugene Tan asked Mr Chan for his views on the political system, which Associate Professor Tan saw as one in which all eggs are put in one basket.

Prof Tan noted that key sectors like the trade unions are "very intimately tied to the ruling party".

He asked: "In the event that the ruling party becomes incompetent or corrupt, something which even the founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew didn't exclude, how do we then prevent Singapore from going through a systemic collapse?"

Mr Chan replied that this was a concern of the PAP as well: "Institutionally, how do we bring in people with diverse perspectives?"

This was why the Government started the Nominated Member of Parliament and Non-Constituency Member of Parliament schemes, although it did not need to, he said.

Both schemes guarantee a minimum number of non-PAP representatives in Parliament, even if the PAP should win all 89 elected seats.

Picking up on the theme of political diversity in the context of a dominant party, Ambassador-at-Large Tommy Koh asked Mr Chan if the PAP was a victim of its own success.

He likened the PAP to a banyan tree that can stifle the growth of smaller entities beneath its large canopy. "Is the party aware of the need to trim the banyan tree further in the new Singapore? Would it give more room to civil society and reduce the role it plays?" asked Prof Koh, a point that panellist and Drama Box artistic director Kok Heng Leun also picked up on.

Mr Chan said the Government must know the plethora of options available, pick the most appropriate at the time, and be ready to jettison outdated ideas.

Good governance, he said, includes meeting aspirations for more plurality in politics.

Good governance should also involve people acting together to achieve shared goals, he said in response to panellist and Lianhe Wanbao editor Lee Huay Leng, who asked how the Government is taking a more collaborative approach.

Medical professor and opposition electoral candidate Paul Tambyah asked whether good governance should be for the benefit of foreign investors or Singaporeans.

At the heart of it, Mr Chan replied, Singapore's politics should be driven by the desire to improve the lives of its people: "The purpose of governance is, first, to improve the lives and livelihoods of our people and, second, to be good stewards to leave behind a better Singapore for the next generation."




Enjoyed an engaging Institute of Policy Studies’ Singapore Perspectives session to discuss the future of Singapore and...
Posted by Chan Chun Sing on Monday, January 18, 2016






IPS Conference: Diversity

Debate on whether race classification model is still relevant
By Rachel Au-Yong, The Straits Times, 19 Jan 2016

Academic Elaine Ho feels it may be time to do away with the Government's model of classifying people by race.

The Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others (CMIO) classification, in place since the first Census in 1824, has been put to use in housing and education policies, noted the National University of Singapore's associate professor in geography.

"I think the CMIO model has served its purpose," she said.

Although a 2011 change allowed double-barrelled race classification for Singaporeans of mixed parentage, she would "like to see these categorisations dissolved even more".

With more inter-racial marriages and immigration, Singapore has become more diverse, she said, adding: "I wonder if (CMIO) is still a good way to manage ethnicity and intersecting types of identities."

But Acting Minister for Education (Schools) Ng Chee Meng said discarding the model runs the risk of impinging on minorities' rights.

"When we, as the majority race in Singapore, want to blur it, then who would represent their interests?" he said, asking how Singapore would design inclusive politics to make sure Malays and Indians are represented in Parliament.

Fellow panel speaker David Chan, director of the Singapore Management University's Behavioural Sciences Institute, also warned that some aspects of a person's identity cannot be chosen, and that policies should be careful not to land such people in particularly advantageous or disadvantageous situations.

He said: "If we didn't want to talk about male or female (differences), there wouldn't be the Women's Charter. Similarly, if we don't want to talk about CMIO, what kind of policies would we be erasing?"

He did not think the CMIO model impedes national identity, citing surveys that show one "can be very Malay and very Singaporean" at the same time.

"I'm not saying everything is fine, but be careful what we're doing away with," he said.

The CMIO classification and gay rights were the leading topics during yesterday's panel discussion on cohesive diversity at the Institute of Policy Studies' annual conference.

Earlier, in a speech, Mr Ng underlined the need for inclusive policies and politics that help the country become "one united people".

While such policies will evolve as society matures, core elements such as education, meritocracy and the goal of leaving no Singaporean behind must remain, he said.

"As a society, Singaporeans must respect our differences and proactively defend our common spaces.''

As for gay rights, he urged patience in letting society come to its own consensus.

"It may not be satisfactory... but given human dynamics, sometimes time is a great resource," he said.

Rounding off the discussion, Mr Ng, a key member of the People's Action Party's fourth generation of leaders, said his generation would have to earn Singaporeans' trust with regard to their integrity, competence and ability.

"Hopefully, over time, our track record will allow us to continue this relationship, where inclusive politics would be necessary (for an) environment where we have all these diverse viewpoints... and in that conversation derive the energy and strength to position Singapore for SG100."




Had a lively exchange with some 800 guests at the annual IPS Commons Singapore Perspectives conference yesterday. I met...
Posted by Ng Chee Meng 黄志明 on Monday, January 18, 2016





STAYING UNITED DESPITE DIFFERENCES

In some sensitive issues, there may be no definitive consensus today even as we recognise that a new equilibrium may be needed in the future. What do we as a society need to do in that process? How can we be more resilient as 'one united people', harness strengths from our diversity, and not let it pull us apart?

- MR NG CHEE MENG, Acting Minister for Education (Schools).





IPS Conference: Inclusive growth

Disney 'offers important lesson' on transforming economy
By Walter Sim, The Straits Times, 19 Jan 2016

Acting Minister for Education Ong Ye Kung believes that the way Hollywood movie giant Walt Disney Company has changed over the years holds an important lesson for Singapore.

Initially, the focus of the United States company was on cartoon characters Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. But today, the spotlight is on the superheroes of Marvel comics fame and the Star Wars series.

Similarly, Singapore's economy needs to transform itself to be more competitive and attractive so that it does not fail its young.

"For the young, their biggest concern is their jobs and their careers. What are the opportunities for them?" he said yesterday.

"We cannot fail the young," he added, his mind on the projected growth slowdown and Singapore's drive to restructure its economy.

Mr Ong, who helms the higher education and skills portfolio, was speaking about inclusive growth at an annual conference on Singapore by the Institute of Policy Studies.

He cited strategies that will play a crucial role in Singapore's economic transformation.

These include the five-year Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2020 scheme that will pump$19 billioninto science and technology, and SkillsFuture, which promotes lifelong learning for workers to stay skilful and relevant.

But two experts said they worry Singapore's sputtering productivity will be a blight on its economic future. They are Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist Chua Hak Bin and former government chief economist Tan Kong Yam.

Mr Ong said he shared concerns that "the Committee on the Future Economy (will) end up just tinkering and not doing something bold that can transform us just like Walt Disney". He is a member of the committee, led by Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat, that will produce plans for Singapore's next phase of development.

"We must find a way to translate research to innovation, innovation to enterprise," he said. "Research converts money to discovery, and innovation, discovery to business ideas. Enterprise converts business ideas back to money, hopefully more than when we started. So we have to push forward."

In his speech before the discussion, Mr Ong said Singapore's progress and prosperity have raised incomes and helped lower-income families.

But he also acknowledged the prevailing concerns over social mobility and income inequality.

The question of how to achieve inclusive growth - which he said is "elusive" - points to the need for a system that best delivers dignity and pride for its people. This is regardless of whether government policies lean left or right, he added.

While the Government has taken steps to help those left behind, such as the Workfare Income Supplement for lower-wage workers and the Silver Support Scheme for poor elderly people, Mr Ong said: "If you look further left, there are still more left policies on the table for debate."

These include a national minimum wage as opposed to a sectoral one as is the case now, or defining "absolute poverty", he added.

At the other end are extreme right policies, like further restricting - or freezing - the inflow of foreign workers or nationalising some firms and having them contribute to national coffers, he said.

"Ultimately, we don't move left for the sake of moving left. We don't move right for the sake of moving right... We decide on what policies will best serve the welfare of our people and help achieve that elusive inclusive growth."

Mr Yeoh Lam Keong, former chief economist of sovereign wealth fund GIC, argued that more could be done for the lower-income earners by, for example, increasing payouts of redistributive schemes.This will cost 0.7 to 0.8 per cent of Singapore's gross domestic product, he said.

Replying, Mr Ong said it is not that straightforward: "You need to ask how to implement, at what cost, who pays and in the long term, what is the impact."

But, he added, "this is the direction the Government has been moving towards".




At the IPS Singapore Perspectives 2016 today, I talked about Inclusive Growth as articulated in our pledge to pursue “...
Posted by Ong Ye Kung on Monday, January 18, 2016






IPS Conference: The future

Singapore must be confident to chart own path: Heng Swee Keat
First World nations do not offer all answers to Republic's challenges, says minister
By Chong Zi Liang, The Straits Times, 19 Jan 2016

Developed countries are not always the "gold standard" to measure Singapore against, and do not offer all the answers to the country's challenges, Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat said yesterday.

As Singapore starts on its next lap, the country must decide on its own what the best solutions are and be confident enough to chart its own path, he added.

Mr Heng was speaking at the annual Institute of Policy Studies Singapore Perspectives conference and responding to a question posed by a panellist, Ambassador-at- Large Bilahari Kausikan, on what "good politics" should be.

It was a reference to President Tony Tan Keng Yam's address to Parliament last Friday, when he spoke on the need for good politics to deliver good policies.

Mr Kausikan also suggested that the "Third World to First" narrative is outdated, as many First World countries are not doing well or are even dysfunctional.

For instance, European countries have been unable to deal with religious extremism, he said, because they have "handicapped themselves with their own ideologies".

Agreeing that Singapore should not be working blindly towards what other First World countries have achieved, Mr Heng said: "Every society must decide for itself what is it that it wants; what are the challenges that it faces; what are the circumstances; and then have the courage and conviction to know how to get there."

This, he added, can be achieved only if Singapore expands its common spaces where different groups can communicate and come to a shared understanding of Singapore's future direction.

He urged Singaporeans to start dialogues on what kind of society they hope to build.

But any dialogue must be conducted with a firm grasp of the fundamental realities that the country is small, with no natural resources except its people, and that race and religion would always need to be handled sensitively, he said.

When Mr Kausikan noted that many Singaporeans would dismiss such talk as "just another ploy to keep the People's Action Party (PAP) Government in power", Mr Heng agreed that "sometimes, people get very cynical". But, "however difficult it is to get the message across, I think that it is part of the responsibility of our leadership" to try, he said.

He added that there is enough evidence on these issues for people to determine whether "it is all a whole load of rubbish, or you can come out with fairly reasoned analysis and say, indeed, those are the facts of life".

However, there is still reason for optimism for the future. He noted the discussion's theme, The Future Of We, focused on what sort of future Singapore wants, and not whether the country has a future.

Mr Heng spoke at the final session of the day. The panel - which was made up of Mr Kausikan, Ambassador-at-Large Chan Heng Chee and hotelier Ho Kwon Ping - raised wide-ranging topics such as education, freedom of information, and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Professor Chan said many young Singaporeans are not aware of Singapore's history and asked about ways to better educate them about pioneer leaders such as Mr S. Rajaratnam and Dr Goh Keng Swee. The two men were mentioned "only once or twice" in textbooks, she said. Hence, their significant role in the nation's founding is not widely known.

"How do we overcome this? We have to teach history objectively. Which means you talk about Lim Chin Siong when you talk about the PAP," she said, referring to the late Barisan Sosialis leader who broke away from the PAP.

Mr Ho said the future will involve an increasingly active civil society, which needs information.

Information is the lifeblood of dialogues, he added. He suggested having guidelines that would prioritise the release of information to the public, unless it deals with sensitive topics like national security.



FUNCTION OF ELECTED PRESIDENCY

I would not want to prejudge how the discussions will go. I think the President has mentioned that... the Government will study this and there will be a discussion on this topic. In the last few days, in fact, there have been a number of interesting opinions which have been aired.

As to the question of confusion (caused by having an elected) president in our prime ministerial system, indeed, there is the risk of that.

But I feel that the elected presidency (plays) an important function of stabilising our system... and really acting on the interests of Singapore.

The question is, how do we ensure that that remains relevant? How do we minimise potential negatives from having a system like that?

- FINANCE MINISTER HENG SWEE KEAT, in response to Ambassador-at-Large Chan Heng Chee, who asked whether the elected presidency will be reviewed when the Government studies Singapore's political system to see if it needs to be refreshed.



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