S'pore faces challenge of population growth: PM Lee
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SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Singapore must find workable solutions to keep its society vibrant and forward-looking, maintain its economic vitality and strengthen the Singapore core, as it faces the challenge of population growth.
In his 2012 New Year message on Saturday, Mr Lee described population as a "particularly complex and critical challenge".
Mr Lee said the country needs to balance the conflicting factors, make judicious compromises and accept the unavoidable trade-offs.
He highlighted the conflicting factors that have to be considered:
Singaporeans need to have enough children to replace themselves, yet getting married and having children are ultimately personal decisions.
A vibrant economy needs enough workers and talent, yet it runs into physical and social constraints if it admits too many foreign workers too quickly.
Diversity enriches society, provided the new arrivals adopt Singapore's values and culture.
Mr Lee said the government is tightening the inflow of foreign workers to a more sustainable rate but companies are already feeling the pinch, especially small and medium enterprises.
He said individual Singaporeans will feel it too because many foreign workers do jobs that serve citizens.
Mr Lee said admitting fewer foreign workers also means forgoing business opportunities and accepting slower growth.
He said the government must do its utmost to raise productivity, to make up in quality what it will miss in quantity.
The prime minister said these population issues affect all Singaporeans, and will be discussed over the next year to understand better what's at stake and what choices have to be made as a nation.
Mr Lee said how Singaporeans manage the difficult trade-offs, like the population issue, reflects the strength of the community.
He said as the nation matures, its society is increasingly diverse and the public debate has become more open and robust.
Mr Lee said just as important is how well its people relate to one another in a shared home - not only in good times when there are fewer frictions and it is easier to get along, but also when they encounter tough issues and when passions run high and different points of view have to be bridged.
- CNA/fa -
Population to be increased soon.
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wow, thanks for the 废�
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who brings about this "challenge" ah?
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60.1%
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Higher population, overcrowding, MRT overcrowding breakdowns, higher COE, lesser oxygen, less trees, less personal space, and my beloved sengkang riverside river that has a small forest to dissappear. :(
and more clones on sgf.
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Singapore is already so overcrowded. I think we need to reduce the no of people and not increase it further.
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Originally posted by Lokey:
Singapore is already so overcrowded. I think we need to reduce the no of people and not increase it further.
We need 6 or 7 or 10 million to grow our GDP.
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We should get a space mission and colonise Moon.
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And it becomes Singaporean's problem....
Not a resource problem, not a economical problem, not a infrastructural problem,... aka not much of a problem as long as Singaporean have unity(strength of community). Sounds like we deserve to suffer together....
Solution: Get rid of excess foreigners. Keyword: excess.
Make a common goal(enemy, whatever) and the people will unite. If not... the government will be proned to become the perceived enemy...
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Originally posted by Aneslayer:
And it becomes Singaporean's problem....
Not a resource problem, not a economical problem, not a infrastructural problem,... aka not much of a problem as long as Singaporean have unity(strength of community). Sounds like we deserve to suffer together....
Solution: Get rid of excess foreigners. Keyword: excess.
Make a common goal(enemy, whatever) and the people will unite. If not... the government will be proned to become the perceived enemy...
not to mention incompetent existing foreigners. I know many that N.A.T.O.
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Originally posted by Aneslayer:
And it becomes Singaporean's problem....
Not a resource problem, not a economical problem, not a infrastructural problem,... aka not much of a problem as long as Singaporean have unity(strength of community). Sounds like we deserve to suffer together....
Solution: Get rid of excess foreigners. Keyword: excess.
Make a common goal(enemy, whatever) and the people will unite. If not... the government will be proned to become the perceived enemy...
It is always Singaporeans' fault.
Haiz.
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When Singapore was rapidly growing and developing, with construction here and there, it was discovered that the saplings planted to replace the trees that are cleared will not grow fast enough.
So the trees that were supposed to be cleared, had their branches trimmed, and the trunk with roots dug out, and the whole torso replanted at site. These stubs then regrow rapidly. It was dubbed "instant trees".
Babies, even if there are sufficient numbers, take time to grow up.
With the population replacement rate paltry, there is a need for "instant Citizenry".
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I wish him death soon. The father and son are making life more difficult for Singaporeans. The damn evil Lee Family in Singapore.
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ya la ya la ya la. Population increases, importing of foreigners all benefit the pay and pay gang. More money into their pockets. Bring in more foreigners to create problems for Singaporeans.
This team of govt is only good at generating problems, create more and more problems for citizens.
PM (PROBLEMS MAKER) LEE HSIEN LOONG rejoicing at the population growth.
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阿斗, 纸上谈兵是没用的,�诚肯, 虚伪
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Talents or cheap labour?
These days those two words seem to have the same meaning in Singapore.
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Does not matter what words so long as they profit.
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Measures concerning population need to be discussed comprehensively: PM Lee
SINGAPORE: Speaking to the media at the annual Chinatown lightup, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the government will need to discuss measures concerning population from a comprehensive point of view.
In his 2012 New Year message on December 31, Mr Lee had described population as a "particularly complex and critical challenge".
He was asked by reporters if the government will be doing more to grow the population this year, as it will soon be the year of dragon.
Mr Lee said: "It's a dragon year so I hope they will be a few more babies, maybe more than a few more. I don't think we have reached the point of specific extra measures yet but it is an issue which we would have to discuss from a comprehensive point of view.
"(It is) not just about how many babies Singaporeans are having but also our population, the trends, our economy, ageing, space, all the different factors which we have to take into account when we talk about population. It is something that we would like to talk about this year."
On the upcoming budget to help Singaporeans deal with high inflation, Mr Lee said the Grow and Share package at last year's budget has given some significant help.
He added that the government will have to see how things are for this year's budget.
When asked about the report on the review of ministerial salaries, Mr Lee said that he is studying the report.
- CNA/fa -
We need more people to support cpf.
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Always note that for topics involving population, they will never mention reducing it.
Haiz.
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I don't understand. How Mr Lee is able to relate the growth in foreign workers to growing the economy? Is Singapore planning to become a low tech manufacturing orientated country or high knowledge based economy? Because I see a lot of the so-called foreign talent imported are low skilled. If Singapore plans to compete with China on manufacturing then ultimately Singapore will lose out. Singapore has got to differentiate itself from the rest of its competitors and this means moving away from low-skilled based economy.
Importing too many foreign workers will also hurt the singaporean economy because when there is a downturn, the government is unable to send back all the foreign workers causing a glut in the supply of jobs.
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WOT x 9999 damage from dragon lee...
must be dragon year coming le, so wake up with more nonsense...
population growth, arent they the one who made it explode in the first place?
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the foreign workers growing is to keep singpaorean employ? bull shit! my company foreign worker now trying to kick all the singaporean out of the company.
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Originally posted by MagnificientDiagrams:
I don't understand. How Mr Lee is able to relate the growth in foreign workers to growing the economy? Is Singapore planning to become a low tech manufacturing orientated country or high knowledge based economy? Because I see a lot of the so-called foreign talent imported are low skilled. If Singapore plans to compete with China on manufacturing then ultimately Singapore will lose out. Singapore has got to differentiate itself from the rest of its competitors and this means moving away from low-skilled based economy.
Importing too many foreign workers will also hurt the singaporean economy because when there is a downturn, the government is unable to send back all the foreign workers causing a glut in the supply of jobs.
So instead of 1 person producing 2 units of GDP, we have 10 persons producing 4 units of GDP.
GDP increases but average productivity per person drops.