A TALK WITH STUDENTS FROM NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY, SINGAPORE IN 2013

Dr. Tran Dinh Lam just had a talk with students from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, on March 04 in the frame of a cooperative program between the two universities.

The seminar is about the lessons from the economic reform of the two countries. Opportune changes such as opening to attract foreign investments, driving the economy to integrate with other countries in the region, promoting export to create a driving force for economic components, etc. have greatly contributed to Vietnam’s economic growth. The country’s government has also changed its thought in diversifying the human resource training and modifying its managing policies to make the country flourish.

During the talk, students from Singapore also shared their experience in urban management, economic development and corruption prevention. According to them, government officers in Singapore are the highest paid people compared to any other countries. This is a very good policy because it helps to minimize the possibility of corruption and gain the trust of foreign investors to venture into their country.

Dr. Tran Dinh Lam and some students from Nanyang Technological University.

Below are some opinions of two students from Nanyang Technological University when they had a discussion about Singapore’s economic development.

Romawati Bte abudul majid :

Rising Cost of Living in Singapore And Other Challenges

While Singapore has long passed the stage of being a developing country, even as one of the world's affluent nation[1], she faces pressing concerns which affects much of her residents' livelihood. One of the issue the government has been trying to tackle is Singapore's dwindling population.

To overcome the demographic challenge, the government has introduced the Population White Paper 2013 in late 2012. The main aim of this policy is for Singapore to be able to “build a sustainable population with a strong Singaporean core”[2], hence achieving economic vitality. With this, the government aims to bring in foreigners, particularly the expatriates, into the island with the goal of reaching the target population of 5.8 to 6 million by 2020. While the matter of the dwindling population may be solved with this policy, in the long run, Singapore is expected to face a new set of challenges which might come along because of the growing crowds. One area of concern would be the rising cost of living.

As it is, the cost of living in Singapore is already high, with high commodity prices, public and private transportation prices, housing prices, etc. If the population were to grow at a rapid rate, prices will also rise at a rapid rate since the constrained land pushes up the valuation of land and almost everything else as well. At the moment, the people in Singapore are now more affluent due to the high salaries given in order to cope with rising prices. However, as price continues to rise, the demand for even higher salaries by the labor will rise too. Should the government succumb and respond to his demand by upping the labors' salaries, a vicious cycle of rising prices will take place, resulting to a super inflation.

Another problem which could result from the Population White Paper 2013 is what most Singaporeans are currently most worried about and that is the matter of losing the Singaporean identity. Since Singapore is expected to welcome many foreigners as permanent residents of Singapore, many Singaporeans are afraid that their little island would lose its true identity of being a culturally rich nation with 4 main ethnic groups.

In addition, the younger Singaporeans, particularly, also dread the rising competition they have to face in the job market. This frustration could be seen when 6000 youths protested against the policy earlier this year. The matter is further exacerbated as they fear that these foreigners might leave Singapore once they get wealthy, leaving the Singaporeans to deal with the high cost of living and sweep up possible deficits.

However, an advantage to this is that with more foreign, skilled-labor, Singapore can expect exchanges and learning of new work ethics and knowledge. There would also be greater diversity within the country and social cohesion will definitely improve as people's tolerance to one another increases. Singapore would then be a cosmopolitan city model for other cities to emulate.

Melvin Ng:

I am very pleased to attend your lecture on the Vietnam's economic reform. For my country, Singapore, we are considered a very young and successful nation under Mr. Lee Kuan Yew's rule.

Our government officers are the highest pay people compared to any other countries. This is a very good policy because it minimizes the possibility of corruption and gain the trust of foreign investors to venture into our country.

Our government also highly encourages the influx of foreign talents. They provide scholarships for the wise students in other countries to study in our local university, furthermore, providing higher salaries job opportunities such as professors, doctors, engineers etc, to attract more foreign talents into our country.

No doubt the above stated policies really help in building our country to what we are today, but many negative effects also rose along the way. Because of this large amount of foreign labour force in our country, we faced more severe traffic congestions, insufficient infrastructure supply results in sky-high property pricing, increase in healthcare responsibilities and a few other social problems. The most critical problem is the lost of the sense of the belonging of Singaporeans to the nation. Many highly educated/talented or rich Singaporeans begin migrating to other countries. As for the average middle class they have no choice but to stay and compete with the foreign labour force in term of receiving lower salary or less promising job positions, this is one very major problem we faced currently.
 

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