A huge self pawn from our government finally came home to roost recently when i spoke with some guys from Europe and US to move their IT operations to Asia and in particularly to Singapore of course.
All went well until one guy said, but you guys have no talents, your government keeps advertising overseas for talents. You guys don't even have
any talents and must always need to import, how can we sustain and grow our business to attract the best if there are not enough talents in Singapore?
Then more chipped in with bad things to say about SG and in the end, the proposal was scrapped and it was only myself defending SG. The rest just kept quiet. Everyone else was sadly quiet.
Now because of the many campaigns to cheapen the people and itself, many of these large company bosses thinks Singapore is a desert bereft of any talented people, i really hope the government wakes up.
Attracting talents is important and i never begrudge the really good ones. The thing is, they have gone to measures too extreme so that its spoiling the reputation of itself and its people overseas. A balance needs to be sought. I am sure the original purpose and intent was noble and for the good of Singapore but it has been left out in the sun too long.
Put it this way, with the impression they had of Singapore, they were very surprised that i was Singaporean. I told them honestly that there are at least a few hundred thousand if not a million who are better than me, its just that Singapore wants only the best and thats why they have open door policy for now.
One of them nodded as his firm was approached by one of our government representative recently and he pointed out to their campaign in the US and questioned about the country when it needs to import so many. He shared with us that if Singapore needs to import people from certain countries just to survive, then its no longer a country that is better. They might as well based their operations and development into these countries instead if they are coming out to Asia even though political climate, ease of business, may be harder. For some of these firms who are willing to pay pretty ok salaries(can fully pay for a 5 room hdb flat yearly) they definitely want good talents.
The rep had to leave in embarrassment. I felt really sad when things have turned out like that.