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[h=2]Former SG chief statistician defends White Paper[/h]
March 25th, 2013 |
Author: Editorial
Dr Paul Cheung. (ST Photo).
At a forum on the Population White Paper yesterday (24 Mar), which was organized by the University of Michigan alumni at the American Club, Singapore’s former chief statistician Paul Cheung gave a stark warning of what he perceived to be the very real dangers of population decline by contrasting the American cities of Detroit, in the state of Michigan, and Austin, in the state of Texas.
He said Detroit’s population has halved in the last few decades while Austin is the fastest-growing city in the US.
Cities live and die on their dynamism, which turns on whether people want to go there, or want to leave. Those who say that the Government should set a population limit and “stay there” (i.e. enforcing the limit) are wrong, he said, as this would kill Singapore’s dynamism.
Dr Cheung now teaches social work at the NUS. He was born in Hong Kong but became a Singapore citizen.
Dr Cheung also pointed to how diversity has helped Singapore recover from crises quickly – when Sars hit and the tourism industry collapsed in 2003, it was a manufacturing boom led by demand from the US that got the economy moving and when the US had its recession in 2008, it was tourism that kept the Singapore economy afloat.
“The Government is very worried about multiple engines of growth because if all else fails, at least something is still working,” he said.
Dr Cheung noted that the bottom 30 per cent of Singaporeans have seen no increase in their real incomes in the last decade.
He added that the Government is welded to its ideology of “development rather than humanitarian assistance”, that is, money is put into training programmes for the low income rather than welfare handouts.
However, he agreed that Singaporeans’ resentment towards foreigners stemmed from a discomfort with the income inequality that the country’s growth model has wrought.
Last year, he was reported in the media [Link] as saying that, “Singapore can, if it wants, accommodate eight million people.”
But whether it wants to hit even six million is a “political matter” up for negotiation between the Government and the people, he admitted.
.
Join our TRE facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/TREmeritus
At a forum on the Population White Paper yesterday (24 Mar), which was organized by the University of Michigan alumni at the American Club, Singapore’s former chief statistician Paul Cheung gave a stark warning of what he perceived to be the very real dangers of population decline by contrasting the American cities of Detroit, in the state of Michigan, and Austin, in the state of Texas.
He said Detroit’s population has halved in the last few decades while Austin is the fastest-growing city in the US.
Cities live and die on their dynamism, which turns on whether people want to go there, or want to leave. Those who say that the Government should set a population limit and “stay there” (i.e. enforcing the limit) are wrong, he said, as this would kill Singapore’s dynamism.
Dr Cheung now teaches social work at the NUS. He was born in Hong Kong but became a Singapore citizen.
Dr Cheung also pointed to how diversity has helped Singapore recover from crises quickly – when Sars hit and the tourism industry collapsed in 2003, it was a manufacturing boom led by demand from the US that got the economy moving and when the US had its recession in 2008, it was tourism that kept the Singapore economy afloat.
“The Government is very worried about multiple engines of growth because if all else fails, at least something is still working,” he said.
Dr Cheung noted that the bottom 30 per cent of Singaporeans have seen no increase in their real incomes in the last decade.
He added that the Government is welded to its ideology of “development rather than humanitarian assistance”, that is, money is put into training programmes for the low income rather than welfare handouts.
However, he agreed that Singaporeans’ resentment towards foreigners stemmed from a discomfort with the income inequality that the country’s growth model has wrought.
Last year, he was reported in the media [Link] as saying that, “Singapore can, if it wants, accommodate eight million people.”
But whether it wants to hit even six million is a “political matter” up for negotiation between the Government and the people, he admitted.
.
Join our TRE facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/TREmeritus
