THE economic crisis has demonstrated how strong Singapore is and how resilient and flexible its people and businesses are, said Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam last night.

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The economic crisis showed that Singapore's banking system is sound and this certainly helped to reassure the growth of the private banking industry here.

The need now is to integrate product manufacturing with the deposit taking activities to create a more sustainable and value added private banking centre. Currently, deposits are booked in Singapore (legally) but the funds are managed by international firms and the products the funds are invested in are also managed from overseas.

There is a long term opportunity for growth.
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the system showed strength during the crisis. however now is the time to find out what fell off the net.

Mr Tharman trying to claim some credits here.

Well, good job and continue the good work.

The government has done a marvellous job in navigating Singapore throughout the financial crisis and credit crunch. Just take a look at other developed countries: both the US and the UK have had to bail out banks to the tune of billions and billions of dollars, saddling their current taxpayers and future generations with cutbacks in public expenditure and higher income taxes not to mention worsening their structural deficits. The UK even has had to create "UK Financial Investments" to manage the government bailouts of Lloyds Banking Group and RBS - contrast that with Singapore: no need for such a bailout manager and in fact, Temasek and GIC continue to invest globally and despite some setbacks, have recouped their losses. It's simply amazing when you consider that not a single Singaporean bank has had to be bailed out and income and corporate tax rates continue to remain one of the lowest globally. Singaporeans have much to be proud of, which only makes me sad when I read complaints posted by some readers online, some immature almost all trifling. They need to take a serious look at how other countries have imploded/ are imploding, get some real perspective before whining online.

resilient?

In Singapore, workers are made to bear the job and income uncertainty, while businesses reap steady profits.

The father of modern Singapore is undoubtedly LKY. And of course if people cannot be grateful to a human being how can they be grateful to the Absolute.LKy's focus on what is good for Singapore is highly appreciated but I still cannot help it when I say that Kissinger should not have been chosen to give the award. It should be a good person like the late Galbraith whose wisdom should not be forgotten.

And Yes,we manage to navigate thru Crisis but we also hve to use our "Second Key" to use our reserved funds.

And incidentally, who were the ones that help builtup these funds?

The FTs / FW / Prs of the recent past fews years or the PRs turned SGCZ and the True Blue SG of the Current and Past many years.?

Wonder if we could withstand another "Tsunami"

So maybe the old advise and saying is True , ie Learn to Save for Rainy Days.

So maybe also the same of "Blood is Thicker than Water"

Maybe also "don't bend yr fingers backward "

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tanden76

What you don't read in the Straits Times or what you don't hear from the Govt does not mean that there is no bailing out. What do you call the $2,000,000,000 subsidy for the loss made by HDB? Is that (subsidy) not another name for bailout? The public do not get to see or hear many things esp Govt accounts so how do we know if no tax money has been injected into private banks? Who gets to verify this? In Spore, no news = bad news. Do you understand?

The bad difference in the HDB case is the bailout does not go to help the people a tiny weenee bit (so actually bailout is more appropriate word to subsidy). Till now, we can only speculate where the money goes to. Buyers of flats get screwed (by the high price), seller gets screwed (by the loss), so who gained? Is it the contractors, supplier and/or the middle men? Is there competition to provide the best deal? Did they use the 3-quote system (in the right sense)? Does the management of HDB has any link to the contractors? There are so many unanswered questions. What about Temasek? Isn't their loss like a bailout for banks? In US or UK, yes, they are in deficit, yes they bail out the banks, and yes, the public will have to pay for all these, BUT the public knows and the public will decide during election whether or not to vote for a change in Govt.

What you need to measure to see the success of any system or govt or country, is by the quality of their peoples lives, including contentment of their careers and what they can make out of it. This you need to see and feel on the ground. Let me re-iterate that looking at the accounts book is not one way of measuring the Govts success (I mean Spore Govts). Everyone knows by now that in accounting, 1 add 1 is not necessary equal to 2. Who audits the Govt accounts? Even the President does not have such privilege.

Lastly, getting a feel of your peoples quality of lives in Spore compared to US or UK, is not by reading the Straits Times. Give you an eg, there are Sporeans thinking that S Africa is a tiny little island, homogenously living as bush people (read the other thread on the S African feeding back on our public toilet). I have just watched a programme showing a family in Botswana. They do not have glittering skyscrapers and tar roads, but their Govt provides free health care and free education to all their people. Do you read this in the Straits Times? Instead, what you will get to hear is anything bad that happened there, similar to any other countries. They will find the bad and dwell on the bad in other countries and the opposite in Spore. This to the them, is nation-building.

I am not whining here, I just find your comment above too simplistic.

Mr Tharman please be careful when you talk about the common people. No we are not strong. I mean people at the bottome are conditioned, rightly or wrongly, to suffer what they are suffering while 20000 millionaires and billionaires are having a much better time what with MM getting 3.6 million annual income including pension and head of state getting 3.7 million. How much are you getting Sir? Do you know how much the cleaner is getting? He needs the monthly salary just to survive to the next month, Sir.
I know that you are a good man but please take a break and mix incognito with the poor Singaporeans. They need more than the RUAS and yearly stipends.
Take a break from LeeKuanYewism and consider returning to democratic socialism because I dont see any real progress in terms of real happiness for the people.