Latest News..... DPM says must take in 30,000 PR every year....
SINGAPORE: Singapore's population could hit 6.9 million by 2030 - up from the current 5.3 million - if strategies outlined in the White Paper on Population to mitigate the country's ageing and shrinking population are met.
The population projection also takes into account a lower GDP growth rate beyond 2020.
Singapore is facing serious challenges of ageing and dwindling population, in particular from 2025 when its citizen population starts to shrink.
The White Paper on Population, released on Tuesday, is the first comprehensive report to outline the country's strategy to ensure a sustainable population.
The proposal is to take in 30,000 new permanent residents (PR) every year which will keep the PR population stable at about half a million. Then, from this pool, take in 15,000 to 25,000 new citizens each year, to stop the citizen population from shrinking.
At this rate, by 2030, Singapore's total population numbers should hit between 6.5 and 6.9 million.
Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said: "We have moderated the number of new citizens and PRs that we've taken in. And we've also put in various measures, some of them very strong measures, to control the growth of the foreign workforce.
"So this has already been moderated for the past three years or so and going forward, we want to make sure the road map we have is an appropriate one. And if we focus on those key issues, making sure we have enough young Singaporeans, a population structure that can provide for our seniors.
"Second that we have an economic structure that provides good jobs that an increasingly educated Singaporean population wants, and we can provide high quality living environment. I think if we can do these three, we look at the population number, and the population we need, to achieve these three objectives and that's the way we looked at it.
"So the growth rate of both the workforce and the population will be half to a third of what it has been in the last three decades, and we have to strike a fine balance because i
f we don't grow at all or shrink, then we'll face all the problems of an ageing population, the lack of dynamism in the economy which some of you are concerned about. But if we grow too quickly, then we may go beyond the constraints we have. So we been trying to find the appropriate balance."
from:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1250894/1/.html
so say 6M - 7M lor.
