Thursday, February 7, 2013

The Much Think About Singapore White Paper on Population

Singapore Government released a White Paper on Population on 29th January 2013 in which projection a population size of up to 6.9m in 2030.  Since that release, there have been more outcries, criticisms and dis-satisfactions from the public than support.  The White Paper raised lot of unanswered questions amid the time when Singapore is facing infrastructure inability to support current population size of 5.3m due to heavy influx of foreigners in the past decade and not to mention the cost and quality of living has not been transformed to the Swiss standard as proposed by ex-PM Goh Chok Tong more than a decade ago.  Inflation remained stubbornly high at 4% for past 3 years, property prices continue to move up despite 7 efforts by the Government to cool it down and COE for car rockets to almost S$100k lately. 

Population size, economy growth and quality of living are coupled together, sometime some trade-offs have to be made in certain aspect in order to achieve a balance of the 3.  The White Paper no matter from which angles one views it, could not find some convincing backing that a balance could be achieved with the proposal.  A Parliamentary sitting is now undergoing to debate on the White Paper in which some MPs from the ruling party, PAP, also questioning on the suitability of the White Paper and opposition party, WP, in their own capacity proposed an alternative solution in determining the population size.  Despite the ongoing Parliamentary debate, those unanswered questions still remain unanswered.

1. The Population White Paper titled "A Sustainable Population for a Dynamic Singapore" mentioned of achieving a GDP growth of between 3% to 5% up to 2020 and from 2020 till 2030 a figure of between 2% and 3% and to achieve that the population size has to grow to between 6.5m to 6.9m in 2030.  From every corners, it appears strongly that a growth target is being set and based on that to determine the population size in need to achieve that.  Question is why can't it done the other way round that is setting a population size that everyone are comfortable with and then derive an economic model to achieve a sustainable growth based on that size ? A recap, in 2010, Singapore GDP came in almost 15% and in 2012, GDP barely hits 3%, a drop of 5 times or more, do you feel the different in GDP growth between 2010 and 2012 ? Do you feel you are richer in 2010 (as GDP is almost 15%) ? From 2010 till 2012, cost of living has moved up (housing cost, transportation cost, health care cost, etc) but salary doesn't seem to able to move up at the same rate as cost of living, infrastructure support has been deteriorating with MRTs breaking down is like a norm now.  Most could not feel the difference between the 2 drastic set of GDP figures.  Hence, the GDP number has become a meaningless figure.  GDP figure is just like the PE of a stock, itself is meaningless as any value or fundamental investors will not just look at the PE of the stock to make investment decision.  It makes more sense as using GDP to compare between countries that all.  Since GDP figure is meaningless why should it be used as a target in order to determine the population size ?

2. Quality of life is another unanswered item in the White Paper on Population.  Quality of life is not simply means cost of living only as it also consists of other components like work life balance, comfort of living and inclusiveness of the society.  Cost of living has been the hottest topic in GE2011 and that continues to remain so with housing price still remain high despite 7 rounds of effort to curb it, COE price rocketed probably 5 times from 2010 to almost hitting S$100k (a piece of paper costing much much more than the metal ?) and inflation remains at 4% despite seeing other Asia countries managed to bring down their respective inflation to a much more comfortable level.  How can be assured that with population size increases to 6.9m, the cost of living will not continue to move up and can it comes down from the current uncomfortable level ?  Singapore is a land limited nation with little or no agriculture resources.  The rice, the vegetables and the meats that we eat everyday are imported.  With more population means more imports needed and by doing so really don't see how the cost of living can come down.  The pressure cooker society of Singapore is well known and with that the work life balance has taken a hit resulting in family not keen to having more babies.  2 babies are needed for every couple to recycle the population when the they aged.  With the current work life balance we are having there simply lack of encouragement for couples to produce more babies and having children is not something just plain monetary can solve.  The baby bonus scheme was first introduced a decade ago to encourage couple to produce more babies, after 10 years, simply no effect and now Government is upping the bonus incentives but will that still work ? Are we going to waste another 10 years to finally realize it is still not working ?  Everybody want to live comfortably and need a nice place to retire, current population size of 5.3m already making majority feeling uncomfortable, needless to say about 6.9m ?  Expanding infrastructure doesn't mean can absolutely solve the uncomfortable level.  Most want having a car to have that comfort (no need to squeeze in public transport, can leave for work later and back home earlier) but with 6.9m population can Singapore road system caters for that massive amount of cars ? Not enough road, we can build it underground ! Seem solve the problem but do you enjoy traveling underground most of the time ?  I believe seeing sunlight is more comfortable than darkness.  Lastly inclusive society.  Of the current 5.3m population, Singaporean only consists of 3m plus and with the increase of population size to 6.9m (by bringing in foreigner and accepting new citizens), the projected local born Singaporean is merely at a level of 55%.  That is absolutely pathetic and sad.  The influx of foreigners in the past have caused nothing but complains from Singaporeans as they failed to integrate successfully into the Singaporean culture and with more influx coming along the way, how the situation can get better ?  Despite the proposal of building more public housings, expanding railway networks and promises of putting more efforts to help foreigners to integrate into Singapore society, unfortunately, the quality of life issue still remain a big unanswered question.

3. Every countries will have a limit in its population size in reference to the land space.  Once a population size has deemed to be overcrowded there is no turning back to undo it (how ? chase people out of the country to reduce back to a comfortable level ?).  As such, population planning cannot be aggressive and have to do it slowly and at a more controllable pace.  Can Singapore a tiny island really have the land space to accommodate 6.9m without trading off quality of life ?  This question I'm afraid despite how the Government trying hard to convince the people, it will always remain unconvinced.  The population problem Singapore is facing now is low fertility rate resulting in insufficient younger generation to replace the older generation.  To solve this problem, ad hoc solution will not work and so did parachuting more people in.  The root cause for the problem should be identified and dealt with like the Chinese saying of 对症下药.  That would be a more solid and sustainable solution to the population issue.  Everything start from the fundamental and if anything goes wrong, go back to the fundamental.

Days later the Parliament should be voting on the White Paper and with no surprises, the White Paper should be able to pass as there is current less than 1/3 of opposition in the Parliament to have that kind of power to block any White Papers.  Citizens have no say in the approval of the White Paper, the only proxy that convey Singaporeans' approval is through their represented MP.  However, should the represented MP only vote based on what his/her thinks is right and not the opinion of the mass, what can Singaporeans do ? Shouldn't the represented MP does the job of conveying the messaging of the majority in the Parliament ? A single brain is better than few thousands of brains ? All those big questions will still remain unanswered then.

孙子曰: “道者,令民与上同意也,故可以与之死,可以与之生,而不畏危" This was extracted from Sun Tzu Art of War Chapter 1 (第一篇,计篇) in which Sun Tzu used the above as one of the perspective among the 5 to analyze the chance of war success.  The above statement simply stated that "The leader and the people must share the same view so that the people are willing and determine to live and die for the leader".  If the people and the leader of a nation are not united (having the same view) then the nation can fall easily upon attacked.  The White Paper on Population so far has caused the people and the Government on contrast view and according to Sun Tzu, how can the country grow and prosper ?

It is time every Singaporean must have a serious thought on this population issue not just for you but also for the future generations.