8 March 2004
Mr Seng Han Thong (Ang Mo Kio) (In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, the Member for Hougang said the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance was giving a lot of reasons and principles on the macro economics but did not notice the changing trend that impacts our ordinary citizens. What is the current trend in the market? The current trend is one of outsourcing in the manufacturing sector. Many manufacturing industries in the developed countries are outsourcing many of their production to other low-cost countries. Even our Singapore companies are outsourcing. Therefore, DPM’s budget is targeted at addressing this trend.
There are many people who are asking what care and concern this Budget gives to the ordinary people. In the past few years, our people were given a lot of rebates, reliefs and assistance. The main thing is that as leaders of a government, we should discern the mega trends. Unfortunately, although Mr Low and Mr Chiam have seen the main trends, they could offer no solution to help the people. Mr Chiam said that foreign investors had gone to other low cost countries. He did not tell us how to retain these companies in Singapore. Mr Low does not agree with our policy of attracting foreign talents. He seems to be jealous of the foreign talents. We believe that with foreign talents, we can attract foreign investors to come here to set up factories.
Another trend is that more and more jobs are now contract based whether in the education field or in the financial sector. How do we protect our contract workers? As contract work has become a trend, it is important that we protect the increasing number of contract workers. One of my residents complained to me, “Why my daughter can only get contract work and not a permanent job. And the contract is renewable after three years.” I told him that this is the trend, an inevitable trend and asked him to advise his daughter to accept the offer. This resident later told me that his daughter was lucky to get a three-year contract work and she is now employed as a permanent staff.
The bigger trend is globalization. The whole world is looking for talents. Therefore, we should try our best to attract foreign talents to Singapore. We are competing with the other parts of the world for rare talents. They will help contribute to our economy. At the same time, we have not neglected our local talents.
The S Pass to be issued by MOM is a good measure. But some workers are afraid that this may deprive them of their jobs. In fact, The S Pass is given only to a special category of semi-skilled workers in the healthcare service, the pharmacists and nurses. Although we have highly talented people to handle the jobs at the higher plane, we still need other types of talents to cover some jobs in the middle and lower echelons. Although on the surface, it may appear that the issue of S passes may lead to more foreign workers coming in to compete for jobs with our locals, they actually help to fill the vacuum in our service industry. With these semi-skilled workers around, we may enhance the confidence of the potential investors, and tilt the balance in our favour when they decide which country to invest in, thus creating more jobs for our workers in the other areas.
We must spare no efforts in establishing creative industries. However, Mr Chiam said that our film industry cannot be developed because of our PAP Government’s rigid regimes, which made the people docile. But, he offers no help to turn it around. The Indian film industry has been thriving because of its own particular background. We should understand what makes the Indian film industry so successful. In fact, the film industry in Singapore is now taking off. Jack Neo produced his first movie called "Money No Enough" and the last one, Home Run, was particularly successful. One of the young actress won a prestigious Golden Horse award. I understand he is embarking on a new film called The Best Bet. I sincerely hope that you would win the best bet!
Just now, Mr Low has said that the Government departments are reducing their budgets and many people are concerned about it. I am concerned too. But I think we should first understand the motive behind this move. The Government, as a whole, is trying to reduce expenditure. Deputy Speaker, Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, mentioned just now that she hoped the reduced budget would not result in the government department’s efficiency being compromised. One resident told me recently that he used to cut his hair once in three weeks, and now he is cutting his hair once in four weeks. I said, “Why don’t you buy a pair of scissors and ask your wife to cut your hair? Then you will save more.” So, when the Government department has to cut its budget, it has to find other ways to improve productivity so that the same, if not more, work could be done. This must be the spirit.
Let me take Mustafa as an example. First of all, I must declare that I have nothing to do with Mustafa. I am not related to any of its owners. Recently, I visited India, and many people whom I met there told me that whenever they visited Singapore, they would go to Mustafa. Mustafa has become a very famous brand name. Their business philosophy is to be honest, do not cheat on customers, be humble and not arrogant. I visited Mustafa myself and I noticed that the gold jewelry and silverware departments were open for business in the late hours of the night. The sales persons were very knowledgeable and polite. Just imagine, even in the middle of the night, they were still selling the gold ornaments. Not only Indians are patronizing the store but many Singaporeans as well. They enjoy shopping in Mustafa because the prices are reasonable and the service was good. It does not mean that with a 2% cut in the budget and the sky will fall down. They can still offer good and effective service if managed prudently.
In the past, people had said that Singaporeans are arrogant. But my conclusion is that Singaporeans are not arrogant. Many people said that because in the last few years Singapore had progressed very well, the economy was well and they were all very proud of themselves. I think Singaporeans are simply confident of themselves. This is an important quality which we must maintain. I must commend MOM and WDA for their efforts to encourage the retrenched and unemployed to take up skills development and skills retraining. They went all out to promote the concept of re-skilling for better employability in the language that the man in the street can appreciate. Last year, the theme was "The Heroes Roll" and this year "The Best of the Best". The message is very clear: so long as we are prepared to learn from the basics, improve ourselves, employability is waiting for those who are determined to master the skill.
We should impress on the retrenched and the unemployed that there is hope in skill training, so that they can look further ahead and keep moving on. Let me quote you one or two examples.
In our economy, there are many things that our people do not understand. I read in the papers that now, many MNCs in the West are outsourcing their call centres to India, but they do not want their clients to know that the call centre was operating from India. In order to get these jobs in the call centres, many Indians are learning to speak better English and get rid of their Indian accent. Now many Indian ladies are working in the call centres, speaking impeccable English. They earn a lot of money, just as telephone operators, so much so that their parents are worried, thinking that their daughters were working as “call girls”! "Why are they always working at night and earn such a lot of money?” But now, they understand. They are all encouraging their daughters to learn and speak good English to get these lucrative jobs. This is a breakthrough!
If we want to develop our service industry, if we want to embrace the new economy, we must change our mindset. We should explain this new phenomenon to the ordinary citizens so that they would understand. Otherwise, they can have a lot of complains, but no solution to the problem. As political leaders, we should look for the solution and help the people, rather than moaning over it.
DPM Lee has proposed this Budget under the present circumstances so that we would be prepared to face the future challenges, and that we could seize the opportunities that come with the new economy. We want to compete with India, with China, with all the emerging economies. This would depend on our employers and our employees and with our political leaders, we are all in the same boat. We should help one another.
