And when the number of Permanent Residents (PRs) rose quickly “in the years before 2011,” Mr Goh was annoyed, and told Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong about it, which led to a course correction.
A screenshot of the page from the book that contains this statement was uploaded on Reddit on Wednesday (July 7), one day after Free Trade Agreements (FTA), especially CECA, Singapore’s agreement with India, was debated at length in Parliament.
While Health Minister Ong Ye Kung and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng claimed that the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) alleged that CECA gives Indian professionals unfettered access into Singapore to work, PSP Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Leong Mun Wai answered that some of PSP’s comments on the issue have been misinterpreted but that the party is sticking to its guns in disagreeing “that CECA is net beneficial to Singapore at this stage.”
Redditor u/phunkynerd wrote in their post, “In light of recent discussions on FTAs and foreigners, I thought it’d be interesting to read our ex-PM Goh Chok Tong’s thinking on it, as revealed in his biography Standing Tall.”
The excerpt from the book features a question posed to Mr Goh, now Emeritus Senior Minister, as well as his answer, including foreign talent.
He was asked if he was aware of the sensitivity of the policy regarding foreign talent, in the context of speeches he had made that touched on its importance.
Mr Goh answered, “Yes, from the very beginning. We were always conscious that we could not have an unlimited inflow of foreigners.”
And when the number of PRs grew quickly before the last decade, Mr Goh said he grew “annoyed.”
“Take permanent residents (PRs) for example. In the years before 2011, the numbers rose to 50,000, then 70,000 a year. It was nearly 80,000 in 2008! I was surprised and annoyed I told PM so,” reads page 153 of his book.
The numbers tapered down since then, but Mr Goh pointed out the effect of having so many PRs in the country.
“When you add the numbers up over the years, you will begin to feel the cumulative effect within the society and in daily living. The government has since made a commitment to keep the overall PR population stable at around half a million.”
When asked to clarify who exactly got annoyed, Mr Goh repeated that it was he, but added that this had been a cause of concern for the Prime Minister.
“PM Lee was concerned too, especially given the public reaction to the much larger number of foreign workers whom we admitted after the global financial crisis as the economy rebounded rapidly.” /TISG
Read also: Goh Chok Tong goes bird watching, refers to himself as ‘tall uncle’ of the chicks