Kenneth Tiong Boon Kiat
Singapore
“(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Thank you, Mr Speaker. Last month, I spoke with Teochew residents in my constituency and they asked me, (In Teochew): "Zuo-ni buay sai toi teochew hee?" (做呢唔使睇潮州戏?") Which means: why can we not watch Teochew movies? Mr Speaker, I have three questions.”
“Thank you, Speaker. Residential rooftop solar generates clean energy and reduces household dependence on imported natural gas and provides a hedge against energy price shocks – benefits that EVs, which add demand to the same gas-dependent grid, do not provide. I note that the Minister of State has mentioned the Green Mark scheme.”
“To the extent that there is a court jurisdiction as was the case in Hangzhou in China, I think that there can be made a point to determine whether something is substantively AI-driven redundancy or not.”
“But more than that: no growth where the gains are captured disproportionately by capital and the burden of adjustment falls on labour. Universal access, so intelligence is not rationed by wealth. Strategic engagement, so we are not price-takers in our own future.”
“I would like to ask two clarifications of the Minister. First, why does he believe that the SkillsFuture course enrolment is a reliable proxy for seriousness? I have some of my residents who have gone for some of these AI courses; they are not very complimentary on the content of these courses.”
“The deepest lesson of the last decade of skills policy, here and abroad, is this: the state cannot substitute for the firm as the principal in a worker's training. We have spent 10 years and considerable public money trying.”
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“We need more diversity, not less. I appeal to the Government's sense of fairness and to parents' lived experience: let us not allow this quiet extinction to continue. If we have five more years of this, I think there will be nothing left to save. Let us shift our focus from creating national champions to nurturing a vibrant and resilient preschool ecosystem for all our children. Let us be pro-child, pro-teacher, pro-market, pro-diversity. Thank you.”
“We can open up tenders for new preschool sites in HDB estates and kindergarten spaces within our primary schools, making it a core contractual requirement that any winning bidder must adhere to a strict fee cap. This ensures the public subsidy on rent is passed on directly to parents as affordability." I propose two pilots. First, MSF and the Ministry of National Development to run a sector-wide, open tender for the next batch of preschool sites in new HDB estates. Second, MOE to pilot this same open-tender model in a small number of primary schools, say, five initially, inviting all qualified operators to compete. Mr Speaker, in closing, I ask this Government for the following. First, to answer the three questions. Does the Government want standardised, cookie-cutter early education? Does the Government want to nationalise this sector? Is the Government's ideal outcome an AOP to MK nationalised model? Second, fairness. To clarify ECDA's actions in October 2022 regarding the wage announcement timing and to commit to level-playing field policies going forward. This means dismantling the walls of the trap that operators find themselves in. Allow them to consolidate by providing detailed POP selection criteria and right of appeal. Allow them to sell their preschools. Third, to implement the three-pillar reform. A portable voucher system to fund the child, not the school; a tiered voucher supplement system that embeds policy goals like better teacher pay and special needs support; and a fair and contestable process for allocating preferential sites, with fee caps as a firm condition. Mr Speaker, this Government mentions how the world is becoming more uncertain. At this juncture, enforcing an educational monoculture is exactly the wrong philosophy toward an uncertain world.”
“For teacher wages: instead of selective grants, we can offer a "wage supplement" to the voucher for any centre that pays its teachers above certain benchmarks. The higher the pay, the larger the supplement. We can enforce this transparently using Central Provident Fund data to verify wages and National Institute of Early Childhood Development standards to ensure teacher quality. It turns every operator into a potential partner in raising standards. For special needs, the same principle applies. Instead of forcing top-down integration, we give every child with assessed needs a portable, ring-fenced voucher supplement, based on their assessed needs, such as specialised teachers, lower ratios, or sensory-friendly environments. This funding follows the child, empowering parents of neurodiverse children to choose centres with resources to provide proper support. It will also allow the emergence of specialised centres. Some may point to Hong Kong, which once had a pure flat-rate voucher system, but moved away from it in 2017. Among the reasons given for moving away were ineffectiveness for raising teacher pay, addressing special needs and helping low-income families. In my assessment, the Hong Kong system’s flaw lay more with the flat rate, than the voucher system itself. We can learn from this by using targeted funding supplements for these policy targets: lower-income families, special needs, teacher wages. Three, contestable sites for public benefit. Mr Speaker, Singapore has unique policy levers that many other systems, including Hong Kong’s, do not – such as our stock of preferential allocation sites at HDB estates and primary schools. I believe we must make access to these locations fair and contestable. The principle should be simple: public sites for public benefit.”
“A January 2024 study on childcare in Minnesota found that when you fund parents directly, the market finds a way to create more supply. They found that increased voucher funding led to more providers entering the market, an expansion of available slots, and only modest price increases. This is what a healthy responsive market looks like. It is diversity – and the capacity of all to scale – that gives a market supply-elasticity. A system where operators "cannot remain, cannot consolidate and cannot sell" would create inelasticity and potential future subsidy capture. This is not a leap into the unknown. Australia runs a portable, per-child subsidy, the Child Care Subsidy, that follows the child to any approved service. It is paid to providers to reduce the bill and is governed by a published rate cap that limits the total subsidised amount. Portable funding across operators, transparent reference prices and quality assurance can coexist. By contrast, the current system is highly susceptible to subsidy capture – with chosen operators capturing massive unequal subsidies that may not reach parents as choice or quality improvements. With vouchers, parents can control where the money goes. This will fix the school-level market where subsidies distort operator competition. Second, embed policy goals in the voucher. Speaker, the Government’s instinct is to solve every preschool problem – from teacher pay to special needs – by leaning on its chosen operators. This creates a two-tier system by design. Every preschool policy target begins to look for an operator-led solution. There is a better way. We can use voucher supplements to achieve these policy targets while preserving a contestable market.”
“In some estates like Punggol and Jurong West, multiple AOPs are clustered together in a small area, all "fighting for numbers", displaying what they in China call "involution" or "内卷": a zero-sum game of wasteful competition. Mr Speaker, the fundamental problem is that MSF and MOE are relying on operators – AOPs, POPs, MKs – to uplift the sector instead of genuinely implementing sector-wide reforms. Their three policy goals – affordability, increasing educator salaries, and quality assurance – are rolled out via chosen operators. I will lay out a sector-wide reform without biasing towards particular operators. First, we must fund the child, not the school. Let subsidies follow the child. Instead of funnelling opaque grants to select operators, we can create a portable preschool voucher that bundles all public support into a transparent, per-child amount. Parents can use it at any licensed centre. This empowers parents to choose a preschool that best fits their child's needs – be it PCF, Montessori, faith-based organisations, or play-based centres. It forces all schools, including state-backed giants, to compete fairly on quality, philosophy, service; without pre-determining the winner's business model. In fact, this is not a radical leap, because ECDA itself moved from funding AOPs based on centre capacity to a per-child funding model earlier this year. This principle should be expanded to all operators, not just AOPs. On fee control: the Government may fear subsidy capture – that operators will absorb the voucher without lowering fees. Let me offer a different view. The surest way to keep fees in check is to keep the market open and contestable.”
“Mr Speaker, we should be preparing children not for Primary 1, but for life. There is an immense cost placed upon our teachers, who are on the frontlines of a system breeding burnout. They navigate an unstable market, with centres shutting down left and right, and are increasingly pushed into "cookie-cutter" state-led models that kill their passion for teaching. They manage large kindergarten 2 classes of 25 children and find it hard to give individualised attention. They spend precious time dealing with paperwork and writing incident reports instead of teaching. And they operate in a “kiasi” culture, driven by conservative interpretations of ECDA circulars. This is a culture where pencils must be stored lying flat for safety, where operators are afraid to let children taste prata during cultural lessons. This high-stress, low-trust model is unsustainable. I am told by both teachers and operators that it is causing many teachers to burnout and leave the AOP system, often after bonuses are paid. While I do not have official data, the anecdotal attrition estimates shared with me are concerningly high. This brings us to the cost for parents: a severe diminution of choice. As independent operators close, parents lose access to the diversity that could offer a refuge from these systemic flaws. Finally, there is a cost to all of us as taxpayers. The current funding model is entirely opaque. Without transparency on operator-level subsidies, it is impossible to assess the true cost and efficiency of these schemes. Worse, we may be funding wasteful competition.”
“So, fee notifications for 2023 had to be submitted by 1 September 2022. This timing trapped private operators: they were locked out of adjusting fees to match the new wage benchmarks, yet were immediately exposed to talent poaching by AOPs offering the pay rises. I ask the Ministry to clarify if any transitional provisions were made for private operators caught by this announcement. Mr Speaker, the human cost of this system starts with our children and radiates outwards to their teachers, their parents and finally, all of us as taxpayers. At the centre are the children. While I have great admiration for those who work in AOPs and MKs, which have good programs on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and public speaking, we must acknowledge these systems’ flaws. High teacher-child ratios mean less individual attention. Furthermore, MSF’s top-down directives to include neurodiverse children create chaotic environments. The typical AOP setting, with its bright white lights, cluttered displays and high noise levels, is often unsuited for the neurodiverse, and in turn, diverts resources from neurotypical children who must learn in a more disrupted environment. The educational philosophy itself is also narrowing. MKs increasingly run a standardised programme as their principals focus on Primary 1 readiness and “school-ify” our young children. I do not blame them, if their key performance indicators are more for Primary 1 results over preschool creativity, the push for Primary 1 readiness will almost always win. But we should have the space to “let children be children”. The accelerated roll-out of MKs with priority Primary 1 admission, feeds parental anxiety and creates focus on academic readiness over holistic development.”
“The only path left is to shut down. And that is what many do. So, this quiet extinction continues. Mr Speaker, this is not right. Many private operators started with good intentions to provide a way of education for their kids, pouring their life savings and their passion into creating nurturing spaces. But today, many feel trapped. Speaker, let me state plainly what many operators believe. They suspect the Government wants to nationalise the sector. They ask three questions and they deserve straight answers. Question one: does the Government want standardised, cookie-cutter early education? Many feel the push for AOPs and MKs penalises operators who offer unique models – small teacher-child ratios, project-based learning, Montessori, Reggio Emilia, faith-based schools – that do not fit the standard mold. Question two: does the Government wish to nationalise this sector? Because if the intention is not nationalisation, why are these features present: AOP share increasing, MK count increasing, share of children served by AOPs, POPs and MKs targeted to be 80% by 2025, and no articulated vision for the independent sector beyond its “managed-decline”. Question three: is the Government's ideal outcome a kindergarten market dominated by MKs, with the pre-kindergarten market dominated by major AOPs? Mr Speaker, let me give a further example of why operators perceive a deep lack of fairness in the system and raises questions about whether ECDA’s actions serve the entire sector equitably. On 29 October 2022, MSF Minister Masagos announced significant pay rises for educators in AOPs. However, long-standing ECDA rules require that fee increases for the following year must be notified by 1 September of the previous year.”
“On the MSF side, this is only available to AOPs and POPs. On the MK side, this comes directly from the MOE national Budget. This is a direct transfer to these chosen Government-supported operators, and no one else. The Government's method has thus not created a level playing field; it has created a trap. For independent operators, this trap has three walls. First, they cannot remain. They face dwindling enrollment due to the breakneck expansion of AOPs and MKs, which use unequal fiscal grants to offer lower fees. Simultaneously, these state-backed centres create a net talent drain by offering higher salaries, leaving independents to struggle with rising rental costs and a fight for survival. Second, they cannot consolidate. Some say, "Join the Partner Operator scheme", as this is the intended way for private operators to enter the Government-supported umbrella. For many, this is a difficult choice: (a) the consortium requirement means they must expose their books to one another. One lead holds the purse strings and counterparty risk is high; (b) the selection criteria is opaque – if rejected, ECDA provides no reason and no feedback; (c) there is commercial lock-in: once fees are capped under the POP scheme, exiting is near-impossible as parents will likely not accept a reversion to significantly higher fees. Third, many cannot sell. For many operators in HDB sites, the inability to sell their businesses is a frustrating obstacle. Transfer of lease requires HDB and ECDA approval, but rejections are given without reasons. One operator's sale was blocked with the vague, one-sentence justification that the new owner could not "ensure the continuity of care and education," leaving them with no path of appeal. Cannot remain. Cannot consolidate. Cannot sell.”
“A major draw for parents is priority under Phase 2A of Primary 1 registration for the primary school which creates a "through-train" for Primary 1 admission. There are now 56 MKs. You may know some of these primary schools: Temasek, Princess Elizabeth, Gongshang. This has pulled students away from independent preschools. Independent operators face a pincer movement. From MSF and ECDA: anchor and partner operators who receive significant fiscal funding and preferential allocation to Housing and Development Board (HDB) sites with much lower rent. From MOE: kindergartens operating with the full backing of the national Budget, no binding constraint of rental costs, and a compelling competitive advantage – an implicit pathway into the affiliated primary school. In this environment, even church kindergartens, who have been operating for decades, paying zero rent to use church premises, are also shutting down, halving from over 200 centres 10 years ago to over 100 today. As one operator told me: "Even zero rent also cannot survive." The direction of travel is clear: the "middle tier" of independent preschools is shrinking. Mr Speaker, I support making preschools affordable and raising educators’ wages. But the method of direct operator subsidies used to achieve them has inadvertently created a deeply distorted market. The unfairness comes from the way subsidies are given. There are two types of subsidies. The first is the parent-level subsidy, which many parents will know. The Basic Childcare Subsidy provides a transparent and fair offset of $150 to $300 per month for any citizen child in an ECDA-licensed centre. But the second far more opaque category of operator-level subsidy is largely implemented through direct fiscal transfers.”
“Mr Speaker, since serving as a Member of Parliament, I have seen first-hand the impact of national policies on small, independent preschools in my division. As a parent of young children, I feel these issues acutely. Their voices warn of a serious problem: the quiet extinction of diversity in our preschools. Many young parents may have read in CNA of a spate of preschool closures over the last few years – at least six reported in the past two years alone. And there are many that go unreported. I will explain why. Mr Speaker, let us first understand the landscape. In 2013, the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) was formed under the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) to raise preschool standards. Under it, two major schemes now dominate the sector. First, the Anchor Operator scheme (AOP). Five large, Government-supported operators: PCF Sparkletots, NTUC My First Skool, E-Bridge, Skool4Kidz, and M.Y World. They receive significant grant funding and priority HDB site allocation, in exchange for capping fees and meeting quality requirements. Second, the Partner Operator scheme (POP). These are mid-sized players with slightly higher fee caps but similar obligations. Together, these two schemes have grown at a staggering rate. Today, over 53% of all preschools in Singapore are either an AOP or POP. PCF and NTUC My First Skool alone account for at least 30% of all preschools. The Government has stated that over 65% of preschoolers are in Government-supported preschools, with a target of around 80% by 2025. There is another angle of competition, coming directly from the Ministry of Education (MOE). MOE Kindergartens (MKs) were launched in 2014 and are co-located within primary schools.”
“I thank the Minister for clarifying that the PAP will not be categorically rejecting Michael Petraeus' actions.”
“One clarification. The Minister has set clear bars for responding to foreign influence: immediacy, categorical rejection and explicit disavowal, regardless of ambiguity or delay. Will the Minister now apply those same standards to Michael Petraeus, the Polish national, whose "Critical Spectator" platform has published racially charged commentary on Singapore politics, including a piece titled, "WP abandons Muslim voters, turns to the Chinese"? His platform was previously taken down from Facebook for policy violations. He continues to try to influence our politics from his foreign perch, this time favouring the PAP. Will the PAP categorically reject and disavow his support today, just as the Minister demanded that WP do so within 24 hours?”
“That is a strange question. Clearly, I think we cannot 100% guarantee de-escalation, but it will make sense at the margins.”
“My question is, what are the thresholds preventing CRU escalation and will MND publish the criteria so that residents and frontline officers know when a case is deemed severe? Second supplementary question, if no sensors were deployed, what unique capability did CRU add beyond current procedures by HDB and the Police, which already mediate and investigate?”
“I have three supplementary questions for the Ministry of Law (MinLaw) and two supplementary questions for the Ministry of National Development (MND). For the MinLaw, I would respectfully disagree with the Ministry's view. Because for most of the residents who have appealed for compulsory mediation, and I have written two letters through the Member of Parliament (MP), generally, would the Senior Minister of State not agree that the MP is a sufficient gatekeeper of these compulsory mediation appeals to the Ministry? Second, for residents outside of Tampines, how should they currently appeal for compulsory mediation? Should they appeal to HDB to come down to their units to see their circumstances for themselves? Supplementary question three, there is widespread perception that the Community Disputes Resolution Tribunals (CDRT) are quite toothless because, even if you get an injunction, getting an enforcement order seems to be quite difficult. And I quote a Mothership article of 2024, which reported a Bukit Panjang resident who got a CDRT injunction for their neighbour to stop smoking in June 2023, but found it, subsequently, difficult to get the evidence to get an enforcement order when her neighbour persisted in smoking. For MND, the first supplementary question, so, the CRU has 15 staff members, has had five severe cases in six months. That means less than one case per month. And yet, there are about 2,500 noise cases per month, so generally, using the Tampines electors as a proxy for the number of cases, there should have been about 150 cases for Tampines. So, less than 1% of them have been deemed severe.”
“There are many sources of industrial strength in Southeast Asia. Malaysia is certainly strong in semiconductors. It has a strong healthcare industry. Vietnam is strong in manufacturing. There are others. Again, as I said, I think this Government has a prerogative to decide what these areas should be and to see how best to develop these, but certainly I do not want to be overly prescriptive in what it could be.”
“I brought up one example in my speech. I say that that is one possible direction, regarding semi-conductors. But of course, I do not want to be overly prescriptive about the nature of the industry. I think there are many potential areas that could be developed. The general principle is that this is a policy instrument that I do not believe this Government has ever considered; or rather it has considered it once in the 1980s and I do believe it should be revived again.”
“I thank the Member for his clarifications. For the first question, yes, indeed I do believe that the Government has a very key role to play in fostering these collaborations. Airbus is not a private creation. They have fostered these consortiums to create the economies of scale that are necessary to sustain leading-edge industries. On the second clarification, on which sectors that it should be in. Certainly, there are many, many areas of strength that I think are in Southeast Asia. Healthcare is a big bucket of spending in the future; and there is a strong semi-conductor ecosystem. There are many others, but I think these two are realistic. And I think generally the principle is that it really depends on if the Government is in a position to shape these markets internationally, for the benefit of this country , it should.”
“It requires both developmental will abroad, and restraint at home. This generation must decide what our country’s position is in the whole scheme of human progress. But it is my belief that we are here to catalyse a brighter future. Thank you, Mr Speaker, I support the Motion. 2.26 pm”
“The same unfolding ladder of ideas from AIPs to ASEAN Industrial Joint Venture (AIJVs) to ATIGA, from positive integration to negative integration. But we must recognise our current lack of inherent capacity. So, the state must be the prime mover to catalyse and build it again and anew. This requires a change in our Government’s mindset. The state must be bigger in its ambition to build this inherent capacity and shape markets as only a state can. But it also needs to become smaller, by not competing directly with our own SMEs. Too many local entrepreneurs tell me that once they reach a certain size, their biggest competitor is the Singaporean state and those linked with it. For too long, the State's ambition has turned inward, often leading it to compete directly with our own SMEs. No more. Its role must be redefined. The greatest enabler of our local enterprises and not their competitor. A government that acts as a market-shaper internationally but knows when to retreat domestically creates a fairer playing field for our and our children's ventures to succeed. I know that there are many Singaporeans who do not share the views of some who think that Singapore should focus on doing small things and let big countries do big things. But my message to all is that every ambition has a price. If a nation wishes to be at the frontier, it needs to be prepared to pay that price to cross that bridge. And inherent capacity at the frontier, guarded by protectionist sentiment at the best of times, is today a contested ridge-line, with all nations reawakened to the necessity of inherent capacity. It remains possible, as it always was possible, to cross this bridge, as long as the political will allows. But it requires no illusions about the limits of different growth models.”
“Budgetary decisions from the Ministry of Finance should begin to inform industrial policy decisions of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. We should head in broad strokes to what will be the big buckets of spending over the next 20 years – healthcare, the clean energy transition, maritime industrialisation, education. To ensure these efforts build our local capacity, Government support, like funding and early contracts, must come with conditions. Firms must be required to build deep roots here through local engineering teams, apprenticeships, joint-IP and guaranteed work for our SMEs. Mr Speaker, Singapore should champion the creation of new "Airbus-style" commercial consortiums with willing regional partners. In the 21st century, this need not be a bloated state-owned enterprise. But rather the principal client and industrial anchor for an entire ecosystem of SMEs, along with the safeguards to make sure that value flows down the value-chain. Airbus sustains tens of thousands of European SMEs. Similarly, every successful venture in Southeast Asia could allow an ecosystem of SMEs to thrive. So, how do we begin? Our strategy should be modular. We do not necessarily need to build the entire metaphorical aircraft at once; we can start by mastering a single critical component – the engine, the avionics, the advanced materials. This "building block" approach allows each partner to specialise, making us stronger together than apart. As we prove the model, we can integrate more partners, even from outside our region, to build more complex systems. And what about scale? How might such a cooperation and integration model be replicated? Once done once, the private sector can increasingly take over.”
“And third, today, the industrial bases across Southeast Asia by foreign direct investment give us a foundation that our predecessors never had, that allows us to build complementarity from a higher-base than the agricultural-industrial options available to the previous generation of policy-makers. I am a believer that foreign investment has been a net positive for this region. Negative integration in ASEAN, via ATIGA and FTAs, has created a stable potential foundation for increasing regional trade. But the world is changing and we must now adapt to that changing world. Positive industrial integration is not the only option available to us. But it is a necessary diversifier in a portfolio of international strategies. Above all we should not spend all our diplomatic capital deepening a model that is yielding diminishing returns. We need to build a future with real, defensible, and shared prosperity. This is not a dream. I read with interest in March 2025, the call in the Malay Mail by the chief executive officer of MIMOS Berhad, Malaysia's national applied R&D centre, calling for strong industrial policy to create a semiconductor chip design ecosystem for Malaysia. To move beyond being a trusted manufacturer for global companies to become innovators. When I read this call and others like it, I hear a common developmental language across nations. But to channel these ambitions through national industrial policy is to face the full cost of global competition alone. Singapore should be the partner that de-risks these aspirations by opening a path to stronger, more resilient regional consortiums. We are in the midst of a global investment cycle in many things. Healthcare, nuclear energy, renewable energy, photonics.”
“The four non-Singapore projects were geared towards the agricultural industry, a reflection of national development priorities. The AIPs failed, because national priorities overrode genuine complementation and because the equity structure was fundamentally unbalanced. States will only enter enduring cooperation agreements when they do not fear that their partners will gain disproportionately. The success of Airbus holds a mirror to these past failures and shows us a path forward. Mr Speaker, critics will rightly point out that Europe in the 1960s and 1970s is not Southeast Asia today. They will speak of deep-seated political sensitivities, of differing economic priorities and of the cultural gulf that separates our nations. They are not wrong. These challenges are real and significant. But I ask: are these differences greater than those that separated France and Germany just two decades after a world war? True partnership is not born from the absence of difficulty, but from the shared will to overcome it in the face of a greater common challenge – the squeeze of geoeconomic competition and knowing that going it alone is a losing game. Three factors are critical. First, it requires coalitions of the willing, not committees of the whole. Bilateral or trilateral consortiums of nations. Some must integrate faster, to demonstrate the benefits of a particular integration model. Second, it demands balanced payoffs, like an equitable 50/50 or 60/40 structure. This ensures that every nation has an equal stake in shared success, bridging a trust deficit that erects non-tariff barriers. Defined payoffs and the way they are structured, must be negotiated early on. These negotiations reveal the viability or lack thereof regarding long-term cooperation.”
“ASEAN's website states, and I quote, "Through ATIGA, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand have eliminated intra-ASEAN import duties on 99.65% of their tariff lines. Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR), Myanmar and Viet Nam have reduced their import duties to 0%-5% on 98.86% of their tariff lines. Today, focus is given to addressing non-tariff measures that could have non-tariff barrier effects on the region's trade and business activities"; end quote. Yet a 2019 commissioned study by ASEAN's Coordinating Committee for the Implementation of ATIGA, found that 10 years after ATIGA came into force, intra-ASEAN trade had not grown any faster than ASEAN’s total trade, stagnating at 25%. Moreover, for a large fraction of trade, ATIGA offered no real advantage – either "Most-Favored Nation" rates at zero already meant that there were no tariffs to cut, or the special ASEAN discount was so tiny that it made no practical difference. Decades of effort for negligible results. I am not against negative integration, but it is clearly not a sufficient ideal for Southeast Asian integration. Against it, I believe Airbus exemplifies an ideal of "positive integration" in the industrial sense. Our region tried a form of "positive integration" before, with the ASEAN Industrial Projects (AIPs) of the 1970s. In 1977, five projects were designated: nitrogenous urea fertiliser for Malaysia and Indonesia, phosphatic fertiliser for the Philippines, soda ash for Thailand and diesel engines for Singapore. The equity arrangement agreed in 1980 was fundamentally imbalanced – 60% for the host country, with the other four taking 10% each.”
“This political decision was made possible by two points of consensus: First, the knowledge that industrial policy was necessary to build inherent capacity – again, a rooted high-value local base of companies. Second, that national industrial policy would likely prove insufficient. Transnational projects would be needed to achieve the necessary scale and competitiveness. It was sustained by three key points: political will to provide financing until the consortium hit its first financial milestones, demand-assurance for guaranteed orders in the early years and partner lock-in via specialisation and workshare agreements for the different components. Above all, it was a 50-50 split in equity holding between France and Germany. This has proved highly successful for Europe. Today Airbus is the leading civil aviation company in the world, founded 55 years ago on a framework for positive integration – an integration that builds. Let us turn to our own region, Southeast Asia. The President’s address and its addenda have told us of the multiple platforms we will pursue for economic growth. We are to deepen engagement in existing trading frameworks, from the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership to our networks of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and Digital Economy Agreements. But we have spent years and decades cultivating these types of platforms without fostering that strong base of locally grown companies. Something is missing. For decades, our diplomatic energy has been spent on the idea of "negative integration" – that is to say, integration by way of removal of trade barriers. "Negative integration" has been duly implemented. In 2009, the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) came into force.”
“Building this inherent capacity requires a resurrected developmental state for our time, a state that actively shapes an ecosystem to benefit our people. There are three ways to do this: through research and development (R&D) policy, industrial policy and foreign economic policy. Today, with only 20 minutes, I will focus on the third pillar: how we engage with the world. I would like to tell a story about economic integration. Once, in the 1960s, American giants – Boeing, Lockheed, McDonnell-Douglas – dominated over 80% of the civil aviation market. Europe’s national champions – like Sud Aviation, Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm and Hawker Siddeley – were confined mainly to national markets and had a bleak future if they stayed alone. The industry dynamics favoured the American giants due to large economies of scale, enormous R&D commitments rising 20% yearly between 1930 and 1970 and steep learning curves. In their enlightened self-interest, they turned to a new policy instrument: a transnational industrial consortium. Airbus, founded in 1970, was designed to preserve the aviation industries of Germany, France and the UK. It is important to note it was not a top-down creation of the European Community. It was driven from the bottom-up by the firms themselves. Airbus is not a private creation. It arose from a group of state-backed enterprises and was founded on commercial principles, learning the lessons from the commercial failure of Anglo-French Concorde. State-backing was necessary as the long-duration debt market in Europe was too small to finance this industry alone.”
“Mr Speaker, I am honoured to address this House as an MP representing the people of Aljunied group representation constituency. This special constituency reminds us of that moment in 2011 when Singaporeans began to dream of a more plural political system, and I stand here today in service of that dream. I wish to speak on one of the most important economic questions for our country today: what it will take for Singapore to build inherent capacity. By inherent capacity, I mean a rooted high-value local set of companies, local base of companies and industries. For 50 years, our prosperity has been built on attracting foreign direct investment within a world of free trade. This model served us well. But in a new era of geopolitical blocs and strategic industries, this dependence is a vulnerability. High-value work hosted on our shores can be repatriated at any time, leaving our workers exposed. The ultimate defence for our workers is not a certificate from a course. It is being part of a deep industrial ecosystem. It is tacit knowledge, the unwritten secrets of an industry learned not in a classroom, but in a coffee conversation after work or overheard on a factory floor. The guarded tricks of building and tuning a foundation model or advance notice of a new industry standard. It is the sticky localised knowledge that gives our workers a genuine defensible edge, justifying their wages and creating the conditions for our best entrepreneurs to thrive. Of course, we must continue to upskill our people. But skills-training alone, unmoored from a home industry, is not enough – a skill that can be learned anywhere, can be performed anywhere, often at a lower cost. We must therefore build the inherent capacity to foster unique knowledge advantages.”
“I thank the Senior Minister of State for his reply. I have two supplementary questions. The first is about the age cut-off. The Government's own data of the labour force survey findings of 2024 shows that there is a drop in training participation, falling fastest in the 30 to 39 age group, from 49.5% to 44.7%. My first supplementary question is this: does that not suggest that the 30 to 39 age group should be the subject of greater help, particularly for the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme? And the second question is in regards to the clause restricting the Mid Career Training Allowance to undergraduate qualifications. On Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Gan said that there were five growth areas: precision medicine, AI, green economy, autonomous vehicles, space, and there is a strong research and development (R&D) and reskilling component for all of these industries. For those that have reliable data that I have managed to find, most of the R&D jobs – 90% to 100% of them – do require postgraduate degrees; and generally, in the industry, it appears that 30% to 40% of the jobs in the industry do require postgraduate degrees. So, I will just ask the Senior Minister of State, does he not agree that the clause restricting postgraduate qualifications does not really align with the spirit of the Ministry of Trade and Industry's future strategy?”
“I thank Deputy Prime Minister Gan for his speech. I have three clarifications. First, the Deputy Prime Minister said there was a 5% above-trend growth scenario, which was going to be driven by high-growth sectors. What is the composition of reskilled labour and new labour input? If the Deputy Prime Minister has those assumptions driving the model? My second question is, there has been an increasing number of AI labs setting up here, like Mistral and Google. I understand that they have been accorded incentives. What are the report cards for these incentives accorded to them? The third question, given that both Ministers have mentioned space, is that I noticed there is no space agency here. I would like to ask if that is in the works.”
“There is a case in my division, where the child is hooked on Kpods and expelled from school. He refuses all contacts with authorities. His parents want to know what powers do the authorities have to enforce compulsory assessment and rehabilitation for these youths that refuse our help?”