Temasek Junior College Thursday, 20th July 2017

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TEMASEK PRESS TEMASEK DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER SERIES

BY CHARMAINE HO (25/16) AND TAN QI EN CHARMAINE (19/16) PHOTO CREDITS: SINGAPORE TATLER

On 20th July, in commemoration of the 40th anniversary, the Temasek Distinguished

Speaker Series was held in the auditorium of Temasek Junior College. We were honoured to have Mr Ho Kwon Ping as the speaker at this event. Mr Ho is one of Singapore's most prominent businessmen. He is the Executive Chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings, a Singapore-based leisure business group, which owns both listed and private companies engaged in the development, ownership and operation of hotels, resorts, spas, residential homes, retail galleries and other lifestyle activities in the region. A respected public intellectual, Mr Ho was appointed the inaugural S R Nathan Fellow by the Institute of Policy Studies in 2014 and delivered five public lectures on Politics & Governance, Economy & Business, Security and Sustainability, Demography and Family, and Society and Identity. He was conferred an honorary doctorate by Johnson & Wales University in 2000, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2015. Students,

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staff, parents and alumni had the opportunity to hear his opinions on the economy of Singapore, and many definitely had their eyes opened to a whole new dimension of possibilities and views, as to how the economy and the fast moving digital disruption can affect the growth and development of Singapore, in both negative and positive ways. In this article, we explore some interesting viewpoints that Mr Ho shared during the talk.

To begin, he brings to light the impacts of the rapid wave of digital disruption and the havoc it can potentially wreak on Singapore’s economy. He likened the future of Singapore to a cup half full and a cup half empty and concluded that it was all a matter of perspective.

Mr Ho shared with the audience six negative impacts of the economy on Singapore. The first point he mentioned was our low productivity tract and wonders if Singapore can get out of this poor economic status. “You all know that in the past 20 years, Singapore has got a pretty poor economy,” he says, “We have low productivity and rely heavily on foreign labour.” Singapore also has ageing demographics. “We are one of the fastest ageing countries in the world. As fast as Japan,” he laments. He worries that this will pace a strain on young people as they will be working harder and harder to support older people. He also feels that we may have an irrelevant geography. “Thirty years ago, Singapore was at the centre of the world,” he elaborates, “Today, Singapore is no longer at the centre of the world.” In terms of aviation and growth, he feels that we are not that high up in the ranks or growing that well and just try to convince ourselves that we have high potential. The fourth point he makes is that we have a relatively low value proposition for many of the “new high-technology sagas” that we are trying to attract to Singapore due to factors like our small labour market. “They might as well just go to straight to the US, or China, or Korea,” he says. Mr Ho also feels that we may possibly face a disconnect in our social political climate. “On one hand, we are getting far more educated, far more sophisticated than the previous generation, but at the same time, our social cultural values and attitudes towards many issues are very outdated.” Lastly, he believes that our small size makes us very vulnerable to the disruption caused by the “digital wave”. “Digital disruption does not only affect our developing economies, it also affects very developed economies as well.” he says. “If you want me to go on, I can be very pessimistic, where the glass is not only half empty, but it is drying up very rapidly.”

However, he doesn’t stop there. “On the other hand, that very same glass you’re looking at is a glass half full,” he says and counters his previous statements with six positive points. Although Singapore is no longer a regional hub, it has moved to become a global hub for many other areas like aviation surpassing even countries like Shanghai and Dubai. Singapore’s small size also enables us to hit full employment more easily as fewer jobs are needed to accommodate the whole population. Being an independent city state makes Singapore easier to govern, allowing the government to implement policies in line with what the rest of the world needs without being “burdened by domestic politics like the US”. Singapore is also one of the top 5 or 10 countries in the world in terms of spending on education and “there has been a lot of research done on the spending by government education and the overall economic welfare of

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the society,” Mr Ho states, “education is truly the key for economic and social development.” He also believes that Singapore’s greater understanding of the impacts of robotics and artificial intelligence will enable it to “ride” the wave of digital disruption and instead of “drowning under it”. Singapore’s continued emphasis on our multicultural roots also helps to greatly reduce the likelihood of a breaking up of Singapore’s social-political fabric. Lastly, he quotes Andy Grove’s book, “Only the paranoid survive”. “We are probably the most bloody paranoid people in the world!” he jokes, and elaborates on how Singapore’s unwillingness to take what we have for granted helps to ensure our continued push for growth and success. Mr Ho then concludes his speech, saying, “So long as we are always sure that our survival and our well-being is no guarantee then, I think, Singapore will be a glass half full and not a glass half empty.”

The audience got a chance to actively interact with Mr Ho, through the dialogue session. People ranging from Integrated Programme students, to JC students, to alumni of the school, queued to ask Mr Ho their questions and to seek his views about certain issues. Through the dialogue, Mr Ho clarified many views and provided insightful comments on the economy of Singapore. Some of the more notable responses which he gave included his opinion on the Lee family crisis and his thoughts on the attitude we should take towards future problems. On the Lee family crisis he says, “the Lee family crisis does not define Singapore.” Then, quoting Goh Chok Tong, he states, “Singapore is bigger than that.”

He concluded by saying that “Singapore will always be home for those of us who love this place. You can live in Brisbane, you can live in Montreal, or you can live in Silicon Valley,

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and still contribute to Singapore.” He feels that we need to do our best to make this society vibrant and attractive enough for Singaporeans and foreigners to want to come here.

All in all, the main takeaway from this event, which he repeatedly emphasised, was that we should take ownership and be more engaged with the future of our country. “This is your country,” he says, “It belongs to you, not to anybody else.”