Come Sept 16, Singapore’s city centre will be bustling more than usual as the annual F1 night race resumes for the weekend. In between, several high-profile business conferences, targeted at billionaires, crypto bros, and their assorted hanger-ons, are being held as well.
Hotel rates have reportedly surged past $1,000 per night as the hospitality industry continues to claw back its pandemic-year losses. The F&B industry should do fine, as bottles of bubbly — with or without the by-now infamous (and lavish-spending) Fujian Gang — will still be uncorked.
The date, Sept 16, carries a lot more significance than what has been described. The day is also the centenary of the birth of Singapore’s founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. There are plenty of causes for celebration in this tiny country.
In the post-independence years of the 1960s, there were lots of restless people in Singapore seeking employment in limited industries, made worse when the British military shut down the bases which accounted for a fifth of the GDP. Coupled with tensions among the races, the threat of a communist threat via a regional domino effect and global oil shocks emulating from the Middle East, the odds were stacked against the resource-scare city.
Lee and his team transformed this small island into a roaring economic prowess as one of the Asian Tigers in the 1990s where, at one stage, Singapore dominated disk drive manufacturing globally.
Even though not in the official G20 club, Singapore has become a regular at such summits, playing the role of a neutral geopolitical bridge between giants US and China.
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Attending summits aside, Singapore functions round the clock, year after year, as a reliable sea and air logistics and transportation hub, and a global financial centre transforming for the future with a focus on digital, data and AI. Beneath the bits and bytes, Singapore still exudes the virtues of racial harmony, low crime and social stability — absent in much of Western societies.
Singapore has achieved so much that the contrast was perhaps too stark for some. Just look at the disparaging remarks by then-Indonesian president BJ Habibie on how Singapore is a “little red dot”. Or, how this country, ranked second globally in per capita GDP, has become the target to beat when other leaders want to galvanise their people into action, with the most recent coming from Taiwan’s president-aspirant Terry Gou’s aim to overtake Singapore’s income levels in 20 years if he is elected.
Internally, Singapore charted its own progress. Less than a fortnight ago, we had our “pineapple revolution”, when majority ethnic-Chinese Singaporeans threw race out of local politics by electing former senior minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam as the next president with a thumping 70% vote share.
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Unfortunately, Singapore’s achievements as a country did not fit nicely within the conventional Western narrative. The economic miracle has been attributed by some as a result of an “illiberal” political system, instead of the result of an unfettered (and sometimes irresponsible) individualism underpinning the Anglo-Saxon Western ideology of a democratic, capitalist society.
Nonetheless, Singapore has a pretty broad appeal — even within the most liberal and open Western capitalist-based institutions. Norway’s Norges, the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, for example, has deemed it fit to relocate its Asian hub from Shanghai to Singapore.
For many in the global south, including China, the rule of law and freedoms available here are attractive enough for individuals and businesses to migrate here — just look at how Chinese companies have taken up entire floors in Grade-A commercial buildings, or how the new arrivals are bidding up the membership prices of the Sentosa Golf Course. Allegedly, one such individual bought four memberships to be able to book an entire flight himself.
Art and life
I was thus chuffed to be invited to a preview of a limited two-week exhibition, Now is not the time, that marks Lee Kuan Yew’s 100th birthday. An “immersive art experience”, set up in the defunct Pasir Panjang Power Station, the production combines virtual reality, AI, generative art, architecture, sculpture, film and music to pay homage to Lee’s role as the architect of modern Singapore, his tireless advocate for multiculturalism and champion of technology and innovation.
Together with the pioneering generation of leaders and citizens, Lee’s vision of Singapore was created in but one generation, with the Merdeka group building on our pioneers’ early foundations. I was lucky enough to be born in 1972, now officially deemed a “Young Senior” and classified as a Majulah package beneficiary.
And while I was spared the separation trauma of the ‘60s and remained rather blissful of the tremulous ‘70s economic shocks as a child, much of the historical narrative and our ever-evolving industrial landscape and technological changes including our skyline are represented in creative ways in the exhibition.
In particular, there was an augmented reality segment where one can, with a backdrop of a green screen, be projected onto flying vehicles a century from now — 2123 — circling an imagined amazing cityscape, with the world’s tallest buildings embossed with the names of some of the sponsors!
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The organisers hope that the exhibition (which includes works from LaSalle College of the Arts and Nanyang Polytechnic) will serve as a beacon for navigating the future, reminding us to draw on the past and its deep reservoir of wisdom, and to remain committed to progress.
It is perhaps worth noting that the sponsors represent many involved in the different stages of Singapore’s 58 years (some longer) of independence. While some of them are privately held, — either by Temasek or their respective owners, such as Pontiac Land, PSA International, Mapletree Investments, Kuok Group, Woh Hup, and RB Capital — plenty more are household names and true blue chips listed on the Singapore Exchange, such as DBS Group Holdings, Ho Bee Land, Sats, Singapore Telecommunications and Singapore Airlines (SIA).
Regardless of their listing status, perhaps, by putting their names out there, they are signalling that they will still be leading the way in Vision 2123. Not something to bet your investment dollar on per se — but certainly a statement of intent.
If and when those currently private go for an IPO, the level of reception might not match the open arms extended to the multi-billion IPO of UK-chip designer Arm, which is at least 10 times oversubscribed but will be very much welcomed.
Lessons from the exhibition
Singapore’s economy and markets can do with bigger boosts if it is to continue to stay ahead. China helped create a disinflationary period lasting two decades after it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. However, at the NCS Impact 2023 summit last week, Temasek CEO Dilhan Pillay warned that the world will be a more expensive place in the next decade as the global trading system fragments into redundancy amid a multipolar and geopolitically competitive world. With the heightened need for “security” and “resilience” from supply chains, to cyber, food and energy security, decoupling, de-risking and fragmentation comes with attendant costs — including insurance, or the loss of economic savings from comparative advantage manufacturing and production.
Technology and innovation should result in productivity gains but that may not be enough in the near term until we get over the hump of cost — including interest rates, which is expected to remain higher than the past two decades. Directly held Temasek portfolio companies are both transforming their business models to be future-proof, as they are committed towards net zero. The potential of generative AI and a hydrogen economy presents new opportunities to deploy capital and produce new job clusters.
Interestingly, these thoughts were on my mind as I made my way through the galleries with the who’s who thronging through the exhibits taking wefies. I noticed a good mix of our multi-racial nation builders of old, as well as well-heeled new citizens from West, Northeast and South Asia. That encapsulates Singapore’s success: An openness to talent and capital. Many pioneering contributors to our nation’s economic, administrative and political success came south from across the causeway or countries further out. Many new citizens likewise do that today. We must resist the nativist instincts to exclude but look for ways to welcome, integrate and grow our economic pie so there is more to distribute and share within this little red dot on a map, which has an outsized global voice and impact.
We should continue to accelerate the path of encouraging (through Economic Development Board, Monetary Authority of Singapore, incentives and rules) the family offices and investment capital parked in Singapore to invest more in our capital markets and also contribute to social causes. Ironically, as our own local investment capital seeks “greener” pastures overseas, others — whether foreign direct investment, institutional capital or private wealth — continue to aggregate here.
Fortunately, they continue to appreciate our blue-chip end of the market providing some level of support. The chicken and the egg that needs to be untangled would be the inability of more of this capital to be deployed in our local bourse here unless we have larger stocks and drive more liquidity and trading in our market from our own institutions or ourselves for the second liners. Mapletree has recently indicated “no”, but if PSA or SP Group are to IPO here, they could be as catalytic to our local market as Singtel was at the start of the 1990s boom in share ownership.
The fire, spirit and personal conviction of Lee and our pioneer leaders convinced MNCs and global investors to trust us. Our tough stance against corruption and our industrious citizens, strong management of the Singdollar, and stable politics kept the market risk premium low and enabled sustained job creation. If global investors are convinced to deploy here, why are we looking beyond our shores?
Indeed, as the theme of the exhibition indicates, now is not the time to rest on our laurels or be too promiscuous. The Temasek-linked companies, which had gone through substantial transformational change through the pandemic such as Sembcorp Industries, Keppel Corp and CapitaLand Investments, have charted new life forward for their shareholders and the market. Others have roughed it out, emerging way ahead of the competition such as SIA or found new life like Seatrium. Yet others made bold moves in M&A including Sats, ST Engineering and ComfortDelGro, or digital transformation including DBS, Singpost and Singtel. For these reasons and more, I am sticking with them, adding more to my STI ETF investments — deploying my CPF funds where my pen is.
Chew Sutat retired from Singapore Exchange after 14 years as a member of its executive management team. During his watch, the exchange transformed from an Asian gateway into a global multi-asset exchange, and he was awarded FOW’s lifetime achievement award. He serves as chairman of the Community Chest Singapore
