Community sites for tributes to Lee Kuan Yew to open from tomorrow |
- Community sites for tributes to Lee Kuan Yew to open from tomorrow
- Myanmar to leverage on Asean network to boost economic reforms
- Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew lauded by world leaders
- Legacy of Lee Kuan Yew is the Asian miracle of Singapore
- Visionary Lee Kuan Yew transforms Singapore into modern, prosperous island
- Timeline: Milestones in the Life of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew
| Community sites for tributes to Lee Kuan Yew to open from tomorrow Posted: 22 Mar 2015 05:58 PM PDT
The first four official community sites in Tanjong Pagar GRC, Ang Mo Kio GRC, East Coast GRC and Chua Chu Kang GRC, will be ready for the public from tomorrow (March 24) at 10am. They will be located at Tanjong Pagar Community Club, Ang Mo Kio Central Stage @ Ang Mo Kio Town Centre, the open space in front of Block 209, New Upper Changi Road @ Bedok Town Centre and the hardcourt opposite Block 302, Choa Chu Kang Loop.
Another 14 community sites — in areas like Tampines and Hong Lim — will be set up for the public to pay their last respects from Wednesday (March 25) at 10am, said the People's Association in a statement. The community sites will operate daily from 10am to 8.00pm until Sunday (March 29), after the end of the State Funeral. Residents may visit the sites for a live telecast of the State Funeral on Sunday. Meanwhile, Tanjong Pagar Community Club, Teck Ghee Community Club and Pek Kio Community Centre, which set up spaces for well-wishers over the weekend, will be open to those seeking to pay tributes from 10am today. — TODAY Locations of community sites 1. Tanjong Pagar Community Club  |
| Myanmar to leverage on Asean network to boost economic reforms Posted: 22 Mar 2015 05:54 PM PDT
Finance Minister U Win Shein said Myanmar would continue actively participating in the activities of Asean, given the region's tremendous potential to boost the country's social and economic development. " Asean is a huge region and it's an economic dynamo of the 21st century. "Therefore, we are actively participating in the activities of Asean to achieve our economic reform target," he told Bernama. He was speaking on the sidelines of the inaugural Asean Finance Ministers' and Central Bank Governors' Meeting (AFMGM) at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre here on Saturday. The six-year FESR focuses on fiscal and tax reforms, monetary and financial sector reforms, liberalisation of trade and investment, governance and transparency, private sector development, mobile phones and internet and infrastructure, among others. Through the FESR, the country also plans to achieve an 8.0 per cent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) by 2016. "This year, our GDP target is in the region of 8.0 per cent and the foreign direct investment (FDI) goal is to reach between US$4 billion (RM14.83 billion) and US$5 billion," Win Shein said. According to the Asian Development Bank, Myanmar's economy is on track to grow by 7.8 per cent in both fiscal years 2014 and 2015. Win Shein said Myanmar had at present introduced liberalisation of the banking and insurance markets, unification of exchange rates, initiation of the forex exchange market, as well as, a regulated microfinance market. He said the country would set up its first ever Stock Exchange in the near future, in an attempt to develop the capital market. The government has also enacted the Foreign Investment Law to encourage FDI for the ease of doing business in Myanmar, where the most crucial sectors that need investment are electricity (power) and financial access for small and medium enterprises. In a separate interview, Myanmar's National Planning and Economic Development Minister Dr Kan Zaw said the country aimed to diversify its economy to manufacturing from agriculture and energy as part of the FESR. He said the move was taken as the country is attempting to strengthen its resource-based exports moving forward. Neighbouring China remains the biggest trading partner followed by Thailand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Asean. The reform process has been underway in Myanmar since early 2011, when military rule was replaced by a new military-backed civilian government. Asian corporations have generally remained willing to continue investing in the country, and initiate new investments, particularly in natural resources extraction. "Malaysian companies are investing in the oil and gas exploration in our country and other manufacturing industries," Kan Zaw added. Malaysia took over the Asean chairmanship from Myanmar at the beginning of this year and will host the 26th Asean summit on April 26-27. — Bernama |
| Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew lauded by world leaders Posted: 22 Mar 2015 05:53 PM PDT
Lee, who died today at 91, was Singapore's first elected prime minister, a Cambridge University-trained lawyer who led the nation after independence from Great Britain, from 1959 to 1990. US President Barack Obama said discussions with Lee in 2009 were "hugely important" in helping him formulate the US's policy of rebalancing to the Asia Pacific region.
"Lee's views and insights on Asian dynamics and economic management were respected by many around the world, and no small number of this and past generations of world leaders have sought his advice on governance and development," Obama said in a White House statement. "He was a true giant of history who will be remembered for generations to come as the father of modern Singapore and as one the great strategists of Asian affairs." Lee was hospitalized February 5 to treat severe pneumonia, where he was sedated and put on mechanical ventilation. As leader, he crafted a legacy of encouraging foreign investment, averting corruption and emphasizing discipline, efficiency and interracial harmony. His elder son, Lee Hsien Loong, has been prime minister since 2004. Stability, prosperity "The nation he leaves behind is an influential force for stability and prosperity and a friend to the United States," former US President George W. Bush said in a statement of the elder Lee. Bush's father, ex-US president George H. W. Bush, said he was proud to have called Lee a friend. "I respected his effective leadership of his wonderful, resilient and innovative country in ways that lifted living standards without indulging a culture of corruption," he said. Singapore has been ranked by the World Bank as the easiest place to do business for at least eight years, and has Asia's highest GDP per capita. Lee "personally shaped Singapore in a way that few people have any nation," UK Prime Minister David Cameron said in a statement. "His place in history is assured, as a leader and as one of the modern world's foremost statesmen." Leaders from Australia and New Zealand noted Lee's contribution to the development of modern Singapore. Regional giant Lee was a "giant of our region" who 50 years ago led a "vulnerable, fledgling nation to independence," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said today in a statement. "Thanks to his leadership, Singapore is now one of the world's most prosperous nations, a financial powerhouse, and one of the world's easiest places to do business," Abbott said. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key cited Lee's work to set up the 10-member Asean, "which has offered cohesion and stability in a diverse region." "He was well known for his insights and foresight but what struck me most was his unwavering determination to see Singapore succeed." United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon described Lee as a "legendary figure in Asia," who was widely respected for his leadership. "He helped Singapore to transition from a developing country to one of the most developed in the world, transforming it into a thriving international business hub," he said in a statement on the UN website. — Bloomberg |
| Legacy of Lee Kuan Yew is the Asian miracle of Singapore Posted: 22 Mar 2015 05:51 PM PDT
SINGAPORE, March 23 — When historians chronicle Asia's modern resurgence, they will focus on the rise of the region's biggest economies: China, Japan, India. But if there's such a thing as "Asian capitalism," its spark, smartest proponent and most controversial symbol was the founder of the region's smallest country: Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, who died Monday at age 91. Few would dispute that what Lee achieved in his city-state was an economic miracle. This success, together with his clarity of purpose and outsized personality, influenced the course of Asia's giants. Between 1960 and 2011, Singapore's per capita gross domestic product surged more than 100-fold. It now tops US$55,000 (RM204,105). The city stands as one of the most advanced economies on earth, a preternaturally clean and green oasis famed for strong institutions and wide-open markets in a region still burdened by graft, cronyism and snarled bureaucracies. Lee's great insight was to recognise that Singapore, after being kicked out of the Malaysian Federation in 1965, needed to look beyond its then-hostile neighborhood and export higher-end goods to the advanced economies of the West and Japan. Along with the other so-called Asian Tigers, Singapore concentrated on getting the economic fundamentals right — encouraging savings and investment, keeping inflation and taxes low and currencies stable, and emphasizing high-quality education. This has since become accepted wisdom. Yet Lee chose this path at a time when Communist movements retained a powerful appeal across Asia. (One of his first acts was to harshly suppress Singapore's own leftists, with whom he'd once allied.) China remained in the throes of Mao's mad experiments, while Nehruvian India was busy repressing enterprise and shutting itself off from trade. Lee saw his choice not as a matter of ideology—he loved to say that the only test of an idea was its applicability — but of simple pragmatism.
Deng Xiaoping, a great admirer of Lee's, would adopt a similar attitude when launching his market reforms in China. If for nothing else, Lee should be celebrated for helping to inspire Deng's revolution, which lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and constituted one of the greatest expansions of economic liberty in human history. Political liberty, in Lee's view, could afford to wait — and that's the disturbing part of his legacy. His contention that "Asian values" underpinned the region's stunning economic turnaround had less to do with facts than with his own political convictions. He believed that in a well-ordered society, elites should rule and the masses remain docile. Lee did more than anyone to spread the idea that Western- style democracy was ill-suited to developing nations — that other countries could emulate Singapore's economic success only under the tutelage of a wise, if occasionally repressive, state. His arguments have encouraged illiberal regimes from China to Myanmar and given unruly democracies such as India reason to question their own freedoms. Lee was undoubtedly persuasive, but in the end his theories are unconvincing. The Confucian values that supposedly explain East Asia's rise prevailed when the region was laid low by its encounter with Western colonialism, too. Those same values — hard work, thrift, filial piety — were hailed in the West before its own industrialisation. To his credit, Lee recognised early on that traditional values might not answer the questions posed by success. "Where do we go next? How do we hasten getting there when we don't know where we're going?" he asked an interviewer more than 20 years ago. The Singapore that Lee created—a nanny state that continues to curb free expression and put political opponents at a disadvantage—has hardly begun to grapple with that challenge. Efforts to instill creativity in schools and society have been stilted and ineffective. Inequality is growing, as is public discontent with the ruling People's Action Party. It won barely 60 percent of the popular vote in the last elections—by its own standards, a poor performance. Like Singapore, other Asian nations dominated by a single party or by the military — China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand — are struggling to spur innovation and adopt more politically enlightened models of growth. Lee really did work a miracle, and was instrumental in releasing the region's colossal economic potential. It doesn't diminish that achievement to say that the next stage of Asia's journey needs fresh inspiration. — Bloomberg
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| Visionary Lee Kuan Yew transforms Singapore into modern, prosperous island Posted: 22 Mar 2015 05:50 PM PDT
Kuan Yew passed away at 3.18am today at the Singapore General Hospital where he had been admitted on February 5 for severe pneumonia. He was 91. He was regarded as one of the most prominent and influential leaders not only in Asia but globally.
As Singapore's first prime minister, Kuan Yew, often described as having wielded an authoritarian style of leadership, was gifted with great ideas, values and leadership that successfully transformed the tiny island at the southern tip of Malaysia into what it is today — a world-class and most liveable city. After overseeing the nation's separation from closest neighbour Malaysia in 1965, he applied determination, political will and good governance to mould the city state into an outstanding global financial and economic centre. Born into a wealthy Chinese family on September 16, 1923, in Singapore, Kuan Yew, dubbed the founding father of modern Singapore, helmed the government for three decades, making him one of the longest serving prime ministers in the world. He led the ruling People's Action Party (PAP), of which he was the co-founder and first secretary-general, through eight electoral victories between 1959 and 1990. Kuan Yew rose through the ranks of his country's political system before becoming the first prime minister of Singapore on June 5, 1959. He led the city state into a merger with Malaysia in 1962, but broke away from the federation three years later. The breakaway was considered one of the biggest challenges for Kuan Yew in his entire political career. After the separation, ties between the two neighbours were on the up and down, until 2003 when Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi became the prime minister of Malaysia. More recently, with Kuan Yew's son Hsien Loong as the prime minister in Singapore and Datuk Seri Najib Razak helming Malaysia, bilateral relations have been at their best — politically, economically and between the peoples. Kuan Yew stepped down as the prime minister in 1990 and was appointed a Senior Minister by the second Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. In August 2004, he took up the advisory post of Minister Mentor in the government administration led by his son and current prime minister Hsien Loong. Kuan Yew, who had graduated with First Class Honours in Law from the University of Cambridge in 1949, announced his retirement from the Cabinet post on May 14, 2011, after the 2011 General Election but remained as the Member of Parliament for Tanjung Pagar. Whatever one thinks of Kuan Yew, his deed in dedicating his life to working and planning for the sake of Singaporeans for more than half a century will always be remembered. It cannot be denied that he had turned Singapore from a relatively underdeveloped colonial outpost into a nation with an outstanding economic growth and prosperity. He made Singapore a unique model, demonstrating how innovative policies and effective governance can transform the living environment and, in the process, influence the development of one of the world's most vibrant cities of today. — Bernama |
| Timeline: Milestones in the Life of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew Posted: 22 Mar 2015 05:48 PM PDT
September 16, 1923: Born in British-ruled Singapore.
1936-42: Studies at Raffles Institution, Raffles College. 1942: Japanese capture Singapore during World War II. 1945: British return to Singapore. 1946-50: Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science and University of Cambridge. Called to the Bar at Middle Temple. 1947: Secretly marries Kwa Geok Choo in England. Kwa, a Queen's scholarship winner, was also studying law at Cambridge. 1950: Marries Kwa again after returning to Singapore. 1950-59: Practices law, becomes legal adviser to trade unions. Is frustrated by limited voice for Singaporeans in Legislative Council. Sees need for effective political movement as an alternative to Malayan Communist Party and other groups. 1954: Inaugurates People's Action Party. 1955: Becomes leader of the opposition after being elected to legislative assembly. 1957: Is part of team that wins agreement on self-government for Singapore. 1959: Leads PAP to victory in general election, becomes prime minister of self-governing state of Singapore at 35. 1960: Sets up Singapore's Housing and Development Board to replace slums and squatter settlements with apartments. Today, more than 80 per cent of the resident population live in government-subsidized housing. 1963: Singapore, Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah become Malaysia, gaining independence from the British.
Establishes Ministry of the Interior and Defence to build up the army. At independence, Singapore had only two infantry battalions of 50 officers and about 1,000 men and two ships. There was no air force. Today, Singapore's military expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product is higher than that of China, Japan and the UK, according to World Bank data. 1967: National Service starts. Then Defence Minister Goh Keng Swee said the government's decision to introduce compulsory conscription of male youths was aimed at establishing a credible defence force and creating a national identity. The move allowed Singapore to build up defence forces without placing a heavy burden on the country's financial and manpower resources. 1968: The Development Bank of Singapore is incorporated. Today, DBS Group Holdings Ltd is Southeast Asia's biggest bank. 1972: Singapore Airlines is established, the result of a split of Malaysia-Singapore Airlines into two entities. Malaysian Airline System Bhd. was the other. Singapore Airlines Ltd is now one of Asia's five largest carriers by market value. The government encourages smaller families with a "Please Stop at Two" campaign to slow population growth after a postwar boom. The policy was reversed in 1987, with incentives to encourage Singaporean parents to have more children. The country is now grappling with an aging population after fertility rates plunged below the replacement level of 2.1. 1974: State-owned investment company Temasek Holdings Pte. is incorporated to hold and manage government investments and assets on a commercial basis. Temasek's assets rose to a record S$223 billion (RM599.7 billion) for the 12 months ended March 31, 2014. The company's current chief executive officer is Ho Ching, the wife of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Lee Kuan Yew's son. 1978: Lee meets Deng Xiaoping in Singapore shortly before Deng becomes China's top leader. In a 2011 speech, Lee said Singapore had been a "revelation" to Deng, who saw how an island without resources was able to grow by inviting multinational corporations to invest. After the visit, Deng opened up seaports as special economic zones and invited investments and trade, Lee said. 1981: Changi Airport opens its Terminal 1. Today, it has three terminals with plans for two more and is one of the world's busiest international airports. Singapore sets up sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte. to invest Singapore's growing reserves. It is the world's sixth biggest today, with an estimated US$315 billion under management, according to the London-based Sovereign Wealth Centre. Lee was chairman of GIC's first board of directors. 1998: Singapore Technologies Industrial Corp and Sembawang Corp announce their intention to merge and form Sembcorp Industries Ltd, which has become the largest utility in Southeast Asia and owner of the world's second-biggest builder of oil rigs. 1990: Goh Chok Tong succeeds Lee as prime minister. Lee becomes Senior Minister. 2004: Lee becomes Minister Mentor as his son Lee Hsien Loong becomes Singapore's third prime minister. 2005: The younger Lee's administration scraps a four-decade ban on casinos, clearing the way for multibillion dollar integrated resorts by Las Vegas Sands Corp and Genting Singapore Plc. Shortly before the decision, the Straits Times cites Lee Kuan Yew as saying the city-state may suffer economically should it keep the ban as neighbouring countries open up to casinos, even though he was "emotionally and intellectually" against gambling. 2010: Singapore's economic growth rises to record 15 per cent after casinos open. Lee's wife Kwa passes away on October 2 at age 89, following a long illness. In his eulogy, Lee said that "without her, I would be a different man, with a different life." 2011: "Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going" is published in January. The book, a collection of interviews with Lee on his key ideas, followed memoirs published in 1998 and 2000. Lee and Goh resign from the Cabinet after the PAP, led by Lee's son Lee Hsien Loong, wins the general election with the smallest share of the popular vote since independence. The elder Lee had been a cabinet member for more than five decades. November 2014: Lee Kuan Yew attends annual tree-planting event in rare public appearance, keeping up a decades-old tradition. February 5, 2015: Lee Kuan Yew is hospitalized for severe pneumonia. Sources: Singapore government and company Websites; Lee's memoir "The Singapore Story." — Bloomberg |
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