Foreign Talent Policy Here to Stay: Lee Kuan Yew

WITH Singapore's annual birth rate dropping from 60,000 about 30 years ago to 40,000 now, the chance of finding world-class players among locals alone is slim, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew said last night.

'If we do not attract, welcome and make foreign talent feel comfortable in Singapore, we will not be a global city and if we are not a global city, it doesn't count for much. The days of being a regional city, that's over,' he said. Mr Lee gave his views on foreign talent during a question-and-answer session with tertiary students yesterday evening.

He also said Singapore's foreign talent policy cannot change, as doing so will undercut the nation's capability to grow and expand.

'There are four million people in Singapore; one million of which are foreigners. You get rid of this one million and many will not find jobs.'

Mr Lee was addressing about 1,800 students, from the three local universities, at the Nanyang Technology University Students' Union 9th Ministerial Forum held on campus grounds.

His remarks were made in the context of the recent exits by high-profile foreign talent from Singapore. Among those who left were Philippe Paillart of DBS Group, Barry Waite of Chartered Semiconductor, Tom Kloet of the Singapore Exchange, Flemming Jacobs of NOL, and Jan Poulsen of the national soccer team.

The senior minister said he hoped to see 15 per cent of foreign students decide to work and stay in Singapore.

'In 20 years, if the prime minister then has five Cabinet members who wasn't born here, that's not a bad result,' he said. There were only two Singapore-born members in his first Cabinet of 10 members, he noted.

Mindsets, Mr Lee said, must be changed in order to cultivate entrepreneurial instincts in Singapore.

'In Hong Kong, where the Chinese went over when the Communists came, you better find a job or, too bad, you get back to China. Nobody owes you a living,' he said.

'In Singapore, its like the government owes you a living! That's the way we developed but that's not the way we go forward.'

The senior minister added that to prevent the economy from being hollowed out to China, which is attracting 70 per cent of investments into Asia, Singapore should embark on more value-added services that cannot be moved there, such as the personal services sector.

'But we've got to stay in manufacturing because if we go all out into services, we'll be like Hong Kong, which is in a dangerous, exposed situation . . . If we lose all our low-end manufacturing activities, we will have no one (with the mindset) to flip burgers and make beds in hotels (when the downturn comes) and we face structural unemployment in a big way.'