Learning From Singapore (Part I)
In one of the Technical Training course I attended, I had a nice chat with my instructor who happens to be a gentleman from Singapore visiting Japan. I asked him how he thinks Singapore emerged into one of so called Tiger economies of Asia Pacific. Here are his thoughts as I paraphrased:
Singapore is a small country with almost no natural resources. So the country’s pioneers opened the Island Nation to the World – providing a Tax Haven for companies so that they could come and manufacture their products.
Even now, Singapore encourages foreign investments and the government is Pro-Enterprise. Labor unions, strikes and social unrests are discouraged. The citizen’s are actually systematically educated to be disciplined, hardworking and devoted to their respective companies.
Singapore continues to attract talents from overseas and values people with specialized skills up to the point of offering them citizenship. This is how they retain people who can contribute to the society and economy.
Lee Kuan Yew, though probably hated by his generation are admired by the younger generation and regarded as mainly responsible for Singapore’s economic progress. He made Singapore world renown – a small island almost like a dot in the map. [ Actually, I notice that Singapore being in Weather Maps of more News broadcasters than in the Philippines. This emphasizes the fact the envious fact that to many countries Singapore is more significant that her bigger neigbors ]. Lee Kuan Yew ruled with an iron fist and branded by many as a dictator. People feared him for his wide control all-over the City State. [ But I think in many countries and at a particular stage of a nation – this is the only way to do it. Sometimes to move a country from a complete chaos to democracy total control might be absolutely necessary. I think this is true for the early years of the former Philippine President Marcos rule. He unified the nation, enforced discipline and eradicated corruption. He was also responsible for the Philippines’ Golden years at which point the country was considered the fastest growing in the Southeast Asia. Unfortunately things went bad for him and the country. ]
The Prime Minister and government employees are well paid. In fact Singapore PM was allegedly higher or equally paid than the US President. Would you believe that? His compensation ranks with the world’s most powerful CEOs. Results – minimal government corruption. Not giving them excuse but we cannot deny the fact that people do bad things when they are in dire need – particularly of money. If you are well compensated and living comfortably, why would you bother risking your life doing corrupt practices?
[Of course, we need to encourage investments, grow the economy first before we can afford this. But this technique works for Japan as well. The government employees are among those most handsomely paid. ]
{ To be continued .... }
