Hansard, Monday, 10 October 2016

Mdm Speaker, may I seek your consent and the general assent of Members to move that Question Time at this day's Sitting be exempted from the provisions of Standing Order No 22(1) so as to enable Questions for Oral Answer to be taken till 4.00 pm today?

I give my consent. Does the Leader of the House have the general assent of hon Members to so move?

Hon Members indicated assent.

[(proc text) Question put, and agreed to. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Resolved, "That notwithstanding Standing Order No 22(1), Questions for Oral Answer set down on the Order Paper for today be taken till 4.00 pm at this day's Sitting." (proc text)]

1 Mr Christopher de Souza asked the Minister for Social and Family Development what are the safeguards to prevent an increase in online gambling addiction in light of the pending approval of exempted online providers.

Mdm Speaker, before I answer the Member's question in full, I thought it would be useful to provide a setting because this and the next Parliamentary Question (PQ) involve related issues.

Firstly, from the Government's perspective, we are very clear about the issues concerning problem gambling. For my Ministry, we see the extent of the problems because we deal with the individuals and their families who suffer from it. This is the reality that we grapple with. We do not under-estimate the impact that problem gambling has on individuals as well as families. We are not in favour of gambling; we do not encourage it; and we do not want to promote it amongst our people. We share fairly similar perspectives that many Members have with regard to this issue.

However, taking that position does not preclude the fact that gambling will exist. It is something that others who engage in it have different viewpoints on. Like it or not, it is something that people participate in, in some form or other. By banning it, what will happen? Will it just drive it underground? Our basic concern really is this: as far as remote gambling is concerned, it is an area that is growing. We look at what is happening around the world; it is proliferating; it is growing significantly. In Singapore, where the Internet penetration rate is particularly significant and smart devices abound, there is a very high probability that this is something that would become more of an issue with time.

We share very significant concerns with regard to that, which is why two years ago, we debated in this House the Remote Gambling Act. In that Act, there were the provisions for the exempt operator regime, because we believe that even though we may take a very robust position with regard to managing this space, we are all familiar with the Internet – it is impossible to completely regulate it. There will be ways to bypass – by VPN, proxy sites and so on – for those who wish to engage in online gambling.

We recognise the reality. While we take a very robust position, having a tightly managed, controlled space with safeguards put in place would allow those who continue to gamble online to have a space where at least some level of management can take place.

That is the approach that we are taking with this issue at hand today.

We take a whole-of-Government approach. MSF works very closely with MHA to develop a range of social safeguards for the exempt operators (EOs) to implement, to protect young persons and other vulnerable persons from the harms of remote gambling.

To prevent youth gambling, all account holders must be at least 21 years old before they can open a remote gambling account. The EOs have to carry out stringent checks to verify the identity of the applicant, such as a face-to-face verification at physical outlets with a valid NRIC/FIN and screening of existing casino exclusions with the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG), before an account can be opened.

To protect financially vulnerable individuals, persons who have been excluded from casinos due to family objection or their financial situation will not be allowed to open an individual account. Individuals can also apply to exclude themselves from remote gambling.

To prevent over-spending and addiction, all account holders will be required to set a daily expenditure limit and funding limit before they are allowed to place bets. Funding limit means the maximum amount that can be transferred or deposited into the account per calendar day, while expenditure limit means the maximum amount that can be used for betting per calendar day. Once they have reached their expenditure limits, they will no longer be allowed to place any bets for the rest of the day. As an additional safeguard, any request to increase their expenditure limit will only take place the next day, while requests to reduce their expenditure limit will be effective immediately.

To facilitate informed play, the EOs are required to display responsible gambling messages prominently, such as the time and amount spent, the total win/losses for the day, and alert the individual if he has reached or exceeded 75% of his daily expenditure limit.

Lastly, the EOs will be required to submit all advertising and promotion (A&P) materials to MSF for approval. Advertisements and promotions must not induce gambling.

NCPG has been active in rolling out prevention programmes to complement the stringent safeguards for remote gambling. For example, NCPG partners TOUCH Cyber Wellness and Fei Yue Community Services to deliver cyber wellness roadshows and talks to students and parents. NCPG also launches public education campaigns and videos to highlight the risks of problem gambling. One of the recent videos has a backdrop of sports betting and illegal online betting, to educate youths on spotting the signs of problem gambling and helping their friends in need. Another features popular getai emcee Wang Lei relating his struggles with problem gambling and the importance of family support in helping him recover from problem gambling.

While the Government puts in place stringent safeguards, complemented with NCPG's public education efforts, personal responsibility as well as family and community support are still essential to address this complex issue of problem gambling.

Essentially, what we are doing is to put in place a robust set of laws to have a tightly managed space with safeguards, having an extensive effort as much as possible to raise awareness and have public education and provide support measures for those with these issues. We all understand the ills that come with this. We all would like to take a strong position with regard to this and we do take that, although we also recognise the reality is that, given the Internet space, we would not be able to completely remove the possibility of people gambling online. We believe that having a tightly managed space with safeguards put in place would help at least to ameliorate some of those concerns, even as we continue to work hard on the other measures in place.

Mdm Speaker, I thank the Minister for the response. May I ask two questions? First, if, after the EOs start their trade, the number of Singaporeans moving into online gambling increases, will the Government review its decision regarding the two exemptions? Secondly, if the number of online gambling addiction cases increases as a result of the exemptions, will the Government reconsider the exemptions?

Mdm Speaker, firstly, with regard to online gambling, today, it is very difficult to track the specific numbers online. We do carry out surveys to have a sense of the number of people who are gambling and how many of them are gambling online. We will track the numbers and see how those compare over time, but we do not have definitive numbers of who exactly are online today. We are not able to fully track that. We will track in terms of survey, in terms of responses and see how those numbers grow and we will assess the situation accordingly.

Similarly, with gambling addiction, we find through surveys, the overall numbers have largely remained quite stable. We do see more coming forward to seek treatment. That, we believe, is also due to greater awareness and public education. Again, in terms of data, as we begin to track some of these things more definitely, we are able to then detect trends and patterns to see how we can deal with it accordingly. If we need to tighten measures and review policies, we will continue to do so.

Mr de Souza, you have another question?

I am grateful, Mdm Speaker. I thank the Minister for the response. In my view, there is actually a basis for comparison. The Bill was debated in October 2014; it came into force in February 2015; it is now October 2016. That would mean 20 months of a total ban. So, there is a comparison. My question is: how many were gambling online illegally during that 20-month total ban period? My suggestion is to compare that figure with the numbers after the exemptions. That is a possible test, in my humble view.

My questions are: if the online gambling cases go up, would the Minister consider removing the exemptions and implement a complete ban?

Mdm Speaker, I am not sure how the Member believes that we would be able to know exactly how many people are illegally gambling online. We are not able to track all of them. Those that we are able to track, we have taken some operations. MHA will be able to elaborate on some of the details and actions against those who have violated the laws.

What we have are indicators in terms of the overall market and how it is growing globally. This is not just a problem that is faced by a local market. The online gambling space is international. What we have are participation rates from surveys, from when we survey Singaporeans on how many of them are engaged in some form of gambling and, for those who are gambling, how many of them would engage in some form of online gambling. Obviously, when they do that, they would be in an illegal space. That is something we will track. But in terms of his specific position, that we have been able to know the specific numbers in the course of the last one year plus, we would not be able to do that. Those who are gambling illegally online, we are not able to track every single one of them. We would track in terms of survey numbers; we look at how things develop.

I would highlight this: our objective is to see how best we can look after the well-being of our people. I know that from a specific individual perspective, we may like to take a stronger position and say that we ban it and send a very clear signal that way. We share the same objective. The issue now is how to deal with a very real and practical problem, which is that people are gambling online. Even with the ban being put in place, with MHA taking very active steps to ban new sites coming online, it is the nature of the Internet that we are not able to completely seal off that space. We know that there are people gambling because there have been people and associated individuals arrested as a result of gambling illegally.

For those who are actually gambling online, when there are no safeguards, no safety valves, no safety measures put in place, they are being exposed to very real dangers. One of the biggest concerns we have is criminal elements. What we do see, and we have arrested, is that it is not just the virtual gambling space, it extends to a very real world problem. There are punters, bookies, runners, agents collecting bet monies and extending credit lines. A lot of them, unfortunately, are involved with syndicated crime. It is not trivial from that perspective as well. That is a real thing that is happening today in the course of the last many months after the Remote Gambling Act was put in place.

How do we best deal with it? We believe that having a tightly managed space with social safeguards would help, but if it turns out that there continue to be issues, we will have to take a look at how best to deal with this.

Mdm Speaker, I would like to ask two supplementary questions. The Minister just mentioned that there are lots of ills of gambling,we cannot track and cannot seal it totally online. I would like to ask this: by giving the licences to two operators, how does the Government solve the problem of online gambling? Are you not encouraging more people to go online gambling by making it legitimate? The second question is: comparing total ban and now we have two operators who are licensed, what are the benefits that you are trying to achieve?

Mdm Speaker, in the real world today, what is happening is that even with the ban in place, there are people who are gambling. The global market for online gambling continues to grow. Internet penetration, as I have mentioned, is pervasive in Singapore and that will continue to grow as well. We all know that no ban on the Internet will completely seal things off. The reality is that there are Singaporeans who are gambling online and they are gambling in a space where there are no social safeguards, no monitoring. Those that we are able to monitor, we will be able to take some action. But it is a very large space and it is impossible to be able to completely ban that space.

What happens to Singaporeans who are out there, who still feel that they want to be online and gambling and getting their fix in some shape and form? It is not just the social ills that come with that. It is also a very real concern with law and order issues because, as I have mentioned, criminal elements are involved. When you are betting online, whether on 4D, Toto, horse-racing and so on, there are bookies who collect the monies. There are agents who are there to promote. There are agents who are there to extend unlicensed moneylending facilities.

The real issues that we are concerned with do not really go away. Are we seeking to encourage? No. That is not our position. Our position is not to encourage. Our position is recognising a reality, which is that there are Singaporeans in that space. We are concerned that the numbers may grow as the space continues to proliferate and as the Internet continues to grow in terms of accessibility. So, for those who are there, we can at least provide some form of a safer space to manage that.

Members would remember, in the earlier years in the 1960s, we had a lot of illegal gambling, triad links and so on. Then, we put in place Singapore Pools, the Tote Board, Turf Club, not-for-profit organisations. All the existing illegal online operators are there for profit and to exploit as much as they can. But the whole issue here is to really recognise that some of these vices will not go away.

How do I deal with a real world problem? How do we look out for the best interest of our people? It is not to encourage gambling. We will continue to discourage it. We will want to continue, through public education and raising awareness, to dissuade Singaporeans from gambling in the first place and particularly online gambling. But for those who are in that space, can we provide some form of outlet where there are safeguards put in place?

This is what is happening in Hong Kong and Norway as well. They have also studied very closely the effects of what they have done. What they have found from their assessment is that it has not proliferated and encouraged online gambling in a very big way, but it allows them some space to manage that. And that is the way we want to approach it.

So, we share very similar concerns as Members do, which is to deal with the excesses of online gambling. But how best to deal with the issue? We believe that having this fairly controlled, tightly managed space with social safeguards will be one way to deal with it.

I just want to remind Members that Question No 2 will address some of the issues that you are also raising, so you can also reserve your supplementary questions for Question No 2. Mr Pritam Singh.

Thank you, Mdm Speaker. I have a few supplementary questions for the Minister. Firstly, during the Second Reading of the Remote Gambling Bill, the then Minister for Social and Family Development said that, minimally, exempt operators would be expected to include measures for self-exclusion, employee training, patron education, amongst others. In view of the differences between online and terrestrial gambling, what are the new measures – and I emphasise, new measures – that have been undertaken by the Ministry beyond the baseline measures to address the negative effect of online gambling at all levels – upstream, midstream and downstream?

The second question: at the Second Reading of the Bill, the then Minister for Social and Family Development also spoke of the prospect of online counselling. Can the Minister please brief this House as to whether such measures, specific to online gambling, are going to be introduced? And in this vein, as the Minister just mentioned, what are the expenditure and funding limits for online gambling on a daily basis, in specific numbers?

Thirdly, beyond the requirements that are outlined in the Act, has the Government imposed any additional or specific directions on the Turf Club or Singapore Pools, in relation to the conduct, supervision and control of remote gambling in Singapore? Finally, how long are the exemptions for the Turf Club and Singapore Pools valid for, and on what basis does the Ministry assess these exemptions in an on-going way?

Mdm Speaker, I will leave some of these details to be taken up by my colleague who will address the second PQ. Let me respond to some of the questions raised by the Member.

In terms of the measures that are being put in place to deal with online gambling, the whole list of these has been highlighted. Let me highlight some of these. For example, we have mentioned that, in terms of age limit, you have to be at least 21 years old to open a remote gambling account; persons with relevant casino exclusion will be prohibited from opening an account; the exempt operators will conduct periodic checks with NCPG and account holders who are found to be on any of the relevant casino exclusions will have their accounts closed; relevant casino exclusions include the Family Exclusion Order, the Third Party Exclusion Order and also Automatic Exclusion by law. As at 30 June 2016, approximately 51,000 individuals are under the relevant casino exclusions and will be prohibited from opening a remote gambling account.

What are the daily funding and expenditure limits? Well, the funding limit will be $300, $500, $1,000 and part of it will be user-defined. Expenditure limits are $50, $75, $100, $125, $150, $200, $250, $300 and user-defined. As an additional safeguard, as I have mentioned, any increase in limits takes effect from the next day, while decisions to decrease the limits will take effect immediately.

In terms of the Remote Responsible Gambling Programme, the exempt operators are required to implement remote responsible gambling programmes which would promote responsible gambling and informed play amongst players. Requirements are as follows: (a) display of responsible gambling messages, which means they need to display responsible gambling messages on all remote gambling web pages; (b) players must acknowledge a warning message of the risk of problem gambling before logging in; (c) display of a time counter to indicate the time spent since the player logged into the account; and (d) the provision of information to players to facilitate informed play, for example, a pop-up message indicating the player's total wins/losses for the day is displayed at log-out, an additional pop-up message indicating the player has exceeded 75% of his daily expenditure limit, and the player can access online monthly or weekly statements of the player's past gambling activities to allow for informed play.

Just to illustrate: today, when someone goes to the outlet to buy 4D or Toto, he usually does not track, depending on whether he keeps his own excel spreadsheet or whatever he does to track his expenditure. He actually may have no clue how much he has been spending accumulatively over time. When they are online, that is something that would be made available and made obvious to the individuals concerned. That could have a salutary effect, possibly for some of them.

For the operators themselves, there will be training of the staff. The training programme will be put in place to train them to recognise the signs and harms of problem gambling. Staff would be trained to promote responsible gambling and develop protocols for existing players who request for assistance, or to detect signs of problem gambling.

Additionally, there is a prevention of gambling inducement via advertising and promotions, so the exempt operators have to submit all materials, as mentioned earlier, for advertising and promotions to MSF for approval. Essentially, no inducement of gambling, no depiction of gambling as a positive avenue, no misleading or false statements about chances of winnings, no appeal to vulnerable groups, including youths.

These are measures that we are looking at putting in place. We will constantly review them in terms of their effectiveness and whether things need to be tightened, or if there are new measures to be introduced. That is something that we will track. In terms of the provision of counselling of various sorts, we will continue to look at whatever measures that may be possible. The existing measures will continue to be there, but we will also explore different ways of providing support for the individuals who may need counselling and that would include online counselling. But that is something that we are still looking at in terms of how that may take place.

Ms Chia Yong Yong.

Madam, I will defer my question to the second PQ.

Mr Edwin Tong.

The following question stood in the name of Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai –

2 To ask the Minister for Home Affairs (a) what are the considerations in the grant of an exempt operator licence for online gambling; and (b) in the grant of such a licence, what specific measures will be taken to contain and control the potential of remote gambling to cause harm, especially to young persons, vulnerable persons and society at large.

Question No 2.

Madam, before I proceed, I would like to say that I believe all of us in this House have views on this issue, given the number of questions that have been raised. All of us feel very strongly about the ills of remote gambling, both the law-and-order concerns, as well as the social concerns that arise from problem gambling. Like many people outside this House, many of us here may also have personal convictions, values and beliefs about gambling. We respect and understand those personal viewpoints, values and beliefs. But we have to look at the issue from the national viewpoint, understanding the realities, practicalities and challenges at hand.

Madam, the Remote Gambling Act (RGA) was passed by Parliament two years ago in 2014 and came into force in February last year.

The legislation aims to tackle law-and-order issues associated with remote gambling and to protect young persons and other vulnerable persons from being harmed by remote gambling. The Act provides for a general prohibition on remote gambling. It criminalises the entire spectrum of remote gambling activities and puts in place a comprehensive set of website- and payment-blocking measures. It also provides for a tightly controlled exempt operator regime. So, when the Act was introduced, that was the framework: prohibition with a tightly-controlled valve.

Madam, globally, remote gambling is a significant and fast-growing sector. Global remote gambling activities were estimated to be around US$40 billion in 2015 and grew at a rate of 6%-8% annually over the past five years. At this rate, the remote gambling market will double in size roughly every 10 years.

Singapore is not immune from these global trends, given our high Internet and smartphone penetration rates. If we look at IDA's data, in 2014, our mobile penetration rate was at a whopping 148%, compared to the global rate then at 93%. Likewise, the Internet penetration rate in Singapore was at 73%, versus a global average of 35%.

Since the RGA came into force, we have effected a general prohibition, with robust enforcement and comprehensive blocking measures, to stem the growth of remote gambling within Singapore. Several hundred gambling websites, together with bank accounts and payments linked to remote gambling services, have been blocked. These measures are necessary, but not sufficient, to protect Singaporeans from the harms of illegal remote gambling and problem gambling.

The nature of the Internet is such that it is not possible to completely block access to illegal gambling websites. We would be mistaken to believe that illegal online gambling does not exist today. Determined gamblers can circumvent website-blocking measures by using virtual private networks (VPNs) or through proxy websites. Since February 2015 to date, Police have arrested more than 120 persons for remote gambling activities.

Underground gambling poses serious law-and-order concerns, particularly because of its linkages with organised crime. Secret societies are known to offer illegal 4D and other gambling products. Illegal bookies also engage in unlicensed moneylending and money laundering.

Illegal remote gambling does not come with any social safeguards, as the Minister for Social and Family Development reiterated a number of times in his response. There is no expenditure limit, no prohibition on the use of credit cards, no monitoring of gambling behaviour and no help provided to ensure responsible gambling.

Many underground gambling operations are related to international crime syndicates. For example, in the run-up to and during the recent Euro 2016 football championship, Police worked with foreign law enforcement agencies through Operation SOGA VI, which was an Interpol-led effort, to arrest persons involved in syndicated remote betting operations. In that one operation, 4,000 individuals were arrested across France, Greece, Italy, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, China and Singapore. As part of that operation, the Singapore Police Force apprehended 39 suspects in Singapore, who dealt with S$2.5 million of bets.

Taking a realistic and clear-minded approach, we have to recognise that a complete ban on remote gambling will drive demand underground and create larger incentives for criminal syndicates to target Singaporeans. Hence, the Remote Gambling Act provided for a tightly-controlled exempt operator regime. The exemption regime complements our strategy of general prohibition and blocking measures. Seen in totality, it is an entire ecosystem and framework of measures trying to reduce the problem of online problem gambling.

Madam, this is consistent with our existing approach in the terrestrial gambling space – gambling activities are criminalised and a tightly-controlled valve is allowed as part of the overall system to minimise law-and-order concerns. From our experience with the terrestrial gambling space, this has worked well. A number of other jurisdictions, such as Hong Kong and Norway, adopt a similar approach – allowing regulated operators to complement a general prohibition of remote gambling.

However, we are very careful with providing the exemption. We have imposed strict qualifying criteria for the exemption certificate. The exempt operator has to be a not-for-profit entity that distributes monies to public, social or charitable purposes. Directors and key officers of the operator cannot have been convicted of offences that render them unfit. The operator must possess a consistent track record of compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.

We have also restricted the betting products that the operators can offer. Betting products are limited to those currently available via terrestrial channels. Casino-style games and poker will not be allowed.

The exempt operator is also required to implement strict social safeguards, to minimise potential harm to customers. The Minister for Social and Family Development had earlier elaborated on those social safeguards, in response to Mr Christopher de Souza's question.

I would like to stress that the exemption regime does not change our stance towards gambling. We do not promote gambling. We do not think gambling should be a way to make a living. We conduct public education on the potential harm of gambling and we have social safeguards in place. We will continue to enforce strongly against all underground gambling activities.

Our approach towards gambling is somewhat similar to the approach in many countries when managing other vices, such as drinking and smoking. Although we discourage drinking and smoking, we do not have a complete ban. Instead, we manage the potential harm through regulations and public education.

Some have compared gambling to drug abuse and say if we allow a safety valve for gambling, why not have a safety valve for drug taking or drug offences. I believe they are asking a rhetorical question and conflating the way in which you tackle crime and the way in which societies manage vices that have been around for ages. The magnitude of harm resulting from drug abuse is vastly different and much more severe. Our regimes towards drug abuse and vices, such as gambling, are , therefore, different in complexion.

To conclude, the reality is that illegal gambling exists today. We cannot wish away the presence of underground markets, where criminal activities abound and signs of problem gambling go undetected.

The exempt operator regime aims to provide a regulated and controlled outlet, to divert activities from illegal operators. It is an integral part of our strategy to deal with the problem of remote gambling. It complements the general prohibition of remote gambling, blocking of access and payments to illegal sites, strict enforcement and promotion of awareness and personal responsibility through public education, outreach and engagement.

I would like to thank the Senior Minister of State for his response. Four supplementary questions.

Firstly, how does the Government intend to address the mixed signals that come from this provision? On one hand, we say that gambling, especially remote gambling is pervasive and very undesirable, but on the other hand, it is kind of legal if you go to the exempt operators like Singapore Pools and Singapore Turf Club.

Secondly, a total ban has happened for the last two years. I would like to ask the Ministry how the performance of this total ban has been. From what I have heard on the ground, the Ministry has performed quite well in terms of measures, enforcements, such as the blocking of the remote gambling sites. I would like to ask the Ministry for some details on that.

Thirdly, if we are doing well for that, would the Government seriously consider investing even more resources in the enforcement of this total ban, which has happened for the last two years, instead of spending more money trying to manage things downstream?

Fourthly, again, would the Ministry or the Government consider a total ban in view of the fact that Singapore has banned many less significant things, such as chewing gum and pornographic materials and so forth. Under what circumstances would the Government consider a total ban?

I thank the Member for her questions. She asked about mixed signals, when in 2014 remote gambling was banned and then now in 2016 remote gambling is allowed through the exempt operators. As both the Minister for Social and Family Development and I have reiterated, in 2014 when the Bill was passed through Parliament, it was made clear that the framework comprised a comprehensive blocking of illegal websites, advertising targeted at Singaporeans and payments related to online gambling, as well as a safety valve. It reflected the way in which the problem could be managed and had been managed in the terrestrial sphere. Madam, in response to the Member's question, there has been no mixed signal. We were very clear and upfront that this was the framework and this was the way to tackle the growth of online gambling back in 2014.

But let us be clear that we understand and we share the concerns of the Member and others who have voiced concerns consistently over the years about problem gambling. We are not in favour of gambling. We do not promote and we do not encourage it amongst our people. But we recognise gambling exists and people have very different viewpoints and values about gambling. Some object to gambling, fundamentally and in principle; others think that responsible gambling is possible and there is some autonomy they want to exercise. We have to be practical and recognise the realities when regulating and managing these vices.

As I have said earlier, with Internet access and smartphone penetration rates in Singapore being amongst the world's highest, the reality is that online gambling is available at people's fingertips, whether it is in your home, as Mr Png Eng Huat mentioned in 2014 in his speech, or in people's pockets because they have smartphones with them. Likewise, with VPN and other technology, punters and syndicates will continue to try to circumvent blocking and enforcement measures.

We hope people do not take to remote gambling. The collective effort must be undertaken by the Government, NGOs and VWOs. Public education and awareness raising have to work together with deterrence and law enforcement. But if you ask if a total ban will mean absolutely no online illegal gambling whatsoever, I think the answer is no.

Let me just give some proxy data. As the Member has said earlier, in the last year plus, we had not had this exempt operator regime. Under the framework, there was, in fact, a grandfathering of existing remote betting facilities by both the applicants until the application is resolved. So, in some ways, it has not been an entire total ban, although we had implemented blocking measures.

Nevertheless, online gambling has been here for the last year plus. It is attracting many people and is set to grow. How do we know this?

First, look at the global trends. As I have said earlier, estimates are that the global online gambling size was around US$40 billion last year. Over the last five years, it grew by 6% to 8% percent. It will double every 10 years or so, assuming that the rate does not increase. And most of us are very connected to the Internet and are very tech-savvy. So, these global trends will impact us and we have to recognise that these trends will affect us. Hence, we have to make sure our system is sufficiently robust, sophisticated and practical to address them.

Some people asked for hard data. They say, "There are global trends, we know all these but do you have any data?" I think Mr Christopher de Souza had also asked this question. As the Minister for Social and Family Development had earlier alluded to, the nature of remote gambling, especially underground illegal gambling, is such that it is hard to get precise and accurate details of the nature and extent or the exact number of people who are accessing these sites. As a result, we can only rely on best estimates, where there will be varying figures, estimates and statistics.

Let me give Members a few proxies, so you get a sense of where we are. In 2013, MHA, prior to introducing the Bill, had conducted and commissioned a study. Then-Second Minister for Home Affairs mentioned this in a speech in 2013. This was a study by an external consultant for the Ministry which included a survey of Internet users. Out of over a thousand respondents, three in 10 acknowledged that they had engaged in remote gambling at least once in the past year, and two-thirds of them were between the ages of 25 and 44. That was 2013, so it is just one data point.

There are varying estimates by external analysts on the size of remote gambling in Singapore. We can look for these reports, you can purchase them. The reports analyse the remote gambling market around the world, including in specific jurisdictions. For Singapore, there is a wide range. One estimate suggested that remote gambling in Singapore in 2015 could well be as large as S$461 million, at a time when remote gambling was banned.

Enforcement wise, since 2015 till 2016, Police have arrested more than 120 people involved in illegal remote gambling – syndicates, runners, punters – and these include the 39 arrested during Operation SOGA VI, which was the prelude to Euro 2016. Police carried out more than 100 raids against illegal gambling – terrestrial and online – each year. They continue to keep up this tempo. In 2015, close to 300 people were arrested for illegal gambling, with about 50 charged under the Remote Gambling Act. About 90% of those arrested for illegal football gambling were involved in online football gambling. More than one-third of those arrested for illegal lotteries were involved in online remote lotteries.

Police also continue to arrest illegal bookmakers and agents on an on-going basis. Our experience with terrestrial gambling since the 1960s is that illegal terrestrial gambling activities have largely been kept under control, based on recent arrest figures, which number in the few hundreds each year. In a way, the safety valves in Singapore Pools and in Singapore Turf Club have partly contributed to that.

We have observed and monitored the illegal gambling situation. Whilst the ban and the prohibitions have reduced traffic to a lot of these sites, there is still this traffic from Singapore to some of the blocked sites, via diversionary measures. There is also traffic to new sites, which pop up each and every day.

Over the years, the Police have observed a very obvious shift – syndicates expanding their realm from terrestrial gambling to online remote sphere. Syndicates run bet exchanges for online horseracing, casino gambling, soccer betting and lotteries. Syndicates also use technology – WhatsApp, WeChat – to collect bets, finding ways to circumvent detection and enforcement.

As part of implementing the exempt operator regime, MHA is working with both operators to conduct surveys and studies. This will give us more data points. Indeed, the experience of foreign jurisdictions with narrow exempt operator frameworks – Hong Kong and Norway – has allowed regulators and law enforcement agencies to collect data on betting patterns, which may otherwise have gone undetected. This helps them to finetune policy decisions relating to remote gambling.

I hope that this addresses the Member's question about what has been the experience since 2015 to date. I have given Members some data points and statistics. At the end of the day, given the nature of what we are grappling with, it is very difficult to have and to pin down the exact numbers as you would with something that happens legitimately on a daily basis out in the daylight.

That also answers the Member's third question, which is why not invest more in technology. The exempt operator framework only provides for what is already existing in the terrestrial framework. It does not provide for casino-style games and poker. We will continue and must continue to invest in technology. But at the end of the day, we recognise that this is almost like a technological cat-and-mouse game and we recognise that there will still be growth in online gambling. We must have an entire ecosystem – prohibitions, enforcement, education, moral suasion, family support, community support as well as a tightly-controlled valve – that reflects what we do in the terrestrial sphere.

Madam, may I request the Senior Minister of State to elaborate on the measures that are in place or should be in place to safeguard against proxy online gambling whereby persons who are not eligible gamble through accounts of those who are?

Secondly, in relation to the gambling trends, I note that the Senior Minister of State has said the Government does monitor the macro-trends. Could we also consider or are we considering monitoring at a more focused level whereby we gather data from the gambling accounts and ascertain gambling patterns for earlier counselling intervention?

In response to the Member's first question, when a person uses another person's online gambling account as a proxy ‒ presumably because he may not qualify due to age or because he or she is on the exclusion list ‒ the application for both Singapore Pools and Singapore Turf Club is not automatic, and approval is not given immediately. The person can make an application but he has to turn up physically in person to be verified at one of the centres, to verify his age and eligibility. The operators are required to vet for exclusions and other requirements. The requirement for physical appearance is important.

There is also two-factor authentication every time the real gambler accesses the online account. Two-factor authentication takes place through a mobile number, which ought to belong to the real gambler. So, that is an additional friction. And there will be monitoring by the operators and regulators. If it is detected that an account is used as a proxy, then, the exempt operators would, first of all, have to take firm action. Additionally, the regulators and the Police would have to see if any offence has been committed.

In her second question, the Member asked whether we monitor local trends and will be looking at the data that is generated from the exempt operators' systems. We certainly will look at all trends and all the data that are available. As I have said earlier, in both Hong Kong and Norway, the valve has enabled the regulators there to have more data points about online gambling trends. They can use this information to help sharpen, tighten and revise their overall framework on online gambling.

Mr Alex Yam, next question.

3 Mr Alex Yam asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) what is the current value of awards for Paralympic medallists under the Singapore National Paralympic Council Athletes' Achievement Awards scheme; (b) whether more can be done to recognise the efforts of our Paralympians; and (c) whether more can be done to raise public awareness of the inspiring stories of our athletes who go through much more challenges than able-bodied athletes.

4 Ms Tin Pei Ling asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) whether the current rewards for national sports athletes are sufficient; and (b) whether the Government will consider offering equal rewards to Olympic and Paralympic Gold medallists.

5 Assoc Prof Daniel Goh Pei Siong asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) whether Singapore's Paralympians should be equally rewarded and recognised as our Olympians for their sporting excellence; and (b) whether disabled athletes should be accorded the same level of infrastructural, funding and training support from the Government as able-bodied athletes.

The Athletes' Achievement Award (AAA) is managed by the Singapore National Paralympic Council (SNPC) and funded by sponsors. The scheme was initiated by the Singapore Disability Sports Council in 2002 to recognise the achievements of Team Singapore medallists at Major Games, such as the Paralympics, Asian Para Games, Commonwealth Games and the ASEAN Para Games. The Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) offers the Multi-Million Dollar Award Programme (MAP) for athletes who have medalled at Major Games, such as the Olympics, Asian Games and South East Asian Games, since 1991.

SNPC and SNOC are NGOs. The AAA and MAP are decided, respectively and separately, by SNPC, SNOC and their sponsors. This is in line with the general convention that monetary rewards for competitions in sports are largely funded by private means through sponsorships, donations and product endorsements.

There have been calls by members of the public to improve the rewards given to our athletes who have medalled, specifically Yip Pin Xiu for two Gold medals and Theresa Goh for one Bronze in the recent Rio 2016 Paralympics. I encourage SNOC and SNPC to review the schemes with their sponsors and for more corporations to step forward to support SNOC and SNPC on the awards.

As Member Mr Alex Yam has suggested, beyond monetary rewards, there are other meaningful ways in which Singapore society can support and recognise the efforts of our Paralympians. Some woke up early to tune in to "live" broadcasts to cheer on our own Team Singapore Paralympians in Rio. When the athletes returned, Singaporeans turned out in force to welcome them at the airport and to cheer them on during the Celebration Parade.

On the Government's part, Yip Pin Xiu was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame in 2015, standing alongside legends like Tan Howe Liang and Fandi Ahmad. In 2008, she was honoured with one of the nation's highest accolades, the Meritorious Service Medal, in recognition of her first Gold medal at the Beijing Paralympics. Similarly, Joseph Schooling will be honoured with the Meritorious Service Medal for his first Olympic Gold medal at Rio.

I agree with the Member that our para-athletes demonstrate tremendous resilience and strength of spirit and that we have much to learn from them. Sport Singapore (SportSG) has been profiling their journeys on social media and other platforms. Mediacorp has also broadcasted documentaries on Yip Pin Xiu and Theresa Goh recently in this regard. We will continue to share their inspiring stories with the public. Next month, I hope Members will join me in Parliament when I move a Motion to congratulate our Paralympians for their excellent performance in Rio and celebrate their achievements.

To put the issue in perspective, what can make a difference to our national athletes – whether Olympian or Paralympian – is the combined assistance they receive from family, the community, corporates, the public and the Government. When all stakeholders work towards a common objective, we provide a strong and sustainable eco-system of support for them to pursue their sporting aspirations. Both Joseph and Pin Xiu have shown us the importance of family support.

Corporates can certainly make a difference, too. Instead of just a one-off cash prize, athletes would also welcome good career opportunities that can accommodate their sporting commitments and provide greater security and dignity when they retire from their sporting career. To enable this, SportSG has the SpexBusiness Network. As part of the scheme, for example, Deloitte provides quality opportunities to our national athletes, both able-bodied and those with disabilities. I encourage corporates and well-wishers to complement the roles that the Government plays in building up a sustainable eco-system of support for all our Team Singapore athletes.

On the Government's part, our main role is to provide opportunities for all Singaporeans to pursue their sporting aspirations and achieve their full potential. Hence, our focus has been on providing a sustained, structured and comprehensive support system to help our Team Singapore athletes for podium positions at major games. Instead of focusing on post-podium rewards, we believe our role is to support our athletes upfront in their journey to the podium. We want more of them to get to the podium and bring pride to the nation. We support them through providing scholarships that pay them reasonably well to train full-time. We fund the National Sports Associations (NSAs) and Singapore Sports Institute so that the athletes can be guided by experienced professional coaches, physiotherapists and sports scientists, as they constantly challenge themselves to do better, swim faster, sail faster.

Our High Performance Sports system currently supports 1,653 carded athletes across 45 sports at the cost of $60 million annually. And we have been expanding the scale of our programme at a sustainable pace over the last few years. SportSG would not be able to help as many aspiring athletes pursue their dreams if it had to divert resources to fund post-competition award schemes.

Assoc Prof Daniel Goh asked whether the Government should provide para-athletes with the same level of infrastructural, funding and training support as able-bodied athletes. The fact is that we already do. I wish to highlight three points here.

First, we value all our Team Singapore athletes tremendously. They inspire us as a nation, not just with their sporting achievements, but through their hard work, determination, perseverance, fighting spirit and commitment to excel. These are values that the nation should embrace and the Government is committed to nurturing our Team Singapore athletes, of all abilities, to reach their full potential.

Second, we do not discriminate between able-bodied athletes and para-athletes. The amounts of monthly payments under the spexScholarship scheme for able-bodied athletes and para-athletes are the same. The "team behind the team" of sports medicine and sports science specialists, psychologists and trainers under SportSG supporting these two groups of athletes is the same.

Third, the support provided to Team Singapore athletes is customised according to the requirements of the sport and the differing needs of the individual athlete. Sports like equestrian, rowing or shooting may require more funding to support the transport of equipment for overseas competitions, like horses, boats and rifles. Some para-athletes may need to be accompanied by a caregiver constantly. In preparation for Rio 2016, we provided more funding for our Paralympians than their Olympic counterparts in some cases.

When Team Singapore athletes of all abilities go into the sporting arena, flying our flag high, they need our full support. The Government is fully behind our athletes and we encourage corporates and the public to also lend their support, so that we can best cheer them on together as One Team Singapore.

Just a clarification, Minister. Are you also taking Question Nos 4 and 5 together or just Question No 3?

With your indulgence, the three Questions together.

Okay. Assoc Prof Daniel Goh.

I thank the Minister. The Government has said that it requested the Council to review the awards scheme. May I know what is the Government's view that has been communicated to the Councils in terms of the review, what are the terms of the review, have the Singapore National Olympic Council and the Singapore National Paralympic Council responded to the request and what is the timeline for the review?

As I have said earlier on, these two awards are handled by two of these NGOs separately. These two NGOs will have their own agenda and timeline, and I am sure they will take this review quite seriously. But, more importantly is that they need to have conversations with the donors and supporters because both organisations may have different needs and objectives. I think it is best to leave them to look at their overall plan. SNPC has just had a new President elected. I am sure he has to find his feet and get on with his work.

Madam, I thank the Minister for her comprehensive reply and I add my congratulations to all our sportsmen and sportswomen who have just come back from the Paralympics. I believe there is some amount of confusion among the public in terms of the amount that our Paralympians are receiving. May I ask the Minister if she could confirm that Pin Xiu would be receiving $200,000 per medal that she has got, which means that she will be receiving $400,000, rather than the $200,000 that is being bandied about online?

My second question is on sponsors for the SNPC as well as the SNOC. I believe that Tote Board and Singapore Pools are major sponsors of both the AAA as well as the MAP. Is the value that Tote Board is providing to both these awards equivalent and, if it is not so, would they be willing to bring this up to speed?

The Minister also mentioned the importance of a whole-of-society approach. I met Deloitte recently and I think they are doing a wonderful job in helping many of our athletes in terms of their future career. What plans are there in place at the Ministry level to encourage, in a more concrete manner, more of such corporations to come on board, especially local corporations?

Lastly, the Minister also mentioned the number of carded athletes. Are any of the current Paralympians also receiving scholarships?

Mdm Speaker, I thank Mr Alex Yam for the supplementary questions.

Indeed, Yip Pin Xiu will be getting $400,000 in terms of monetary award. SNPC has stated before the Games, that there will be an award of $200,000 per medal and, because Pin Xiu has gotten two medals, so, it will be $400,000. The scheme by SNOC, on the other hand, is different. They have a $1 million cap, regardless of the number of gold medals. So, Joseph Schooling will be receiving $1 million for his medal.

As far as sponsors are concerned, yes, Tote Board and Singapore Pools are the two main sponsors at this point in time. But if you look back at the history of these two awards, actually the two organisations have been working with several donors in the past and, for various reasons, the donors have been coming in and out of the schemes. But at this juncture, with the very tremendous achievements that our athletes have put in, both at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics and the Paralympics, we would really like to encourage the corporates to step up again to support our athletes. So, it started off as a scheme that had multiple sponsors, all like-minded and wanting to give our athletes an encouragement and a push. So, I would urge corporates to step up again.

It is, indeed, requiring a whole-of-Singapore approach. The athletes whom we speak to are actually looking at internships and employment where companies can allow them to make a living and, at the same time, accommodate their training and competition schedule. They are also looking at accumulating experience that will serve them well as they retire from their sporting career. So, it is important for companies to also step forward to look at the values that our athletes have displayed ‒ values that are very much treasured by companies these days – teamwork, resilience, confidence. These are really good values that will serve the companies well.

So, I hope that companies will be encouraged to follow the practice of Deloitte and other companies that have come on board our spexBusiness Network. The spexBusiness Network is one of the schemes where MCCY, through SportSG, encourages corporates to step forward with internship and employment opportunities, and we recognise them. Annually, we will have an opportunity to thank them formally.

We also welcome companies which are prepared to offer their services to some of these Institutes of Public Character (IPCs) or National Sports Associations (NSAs). Many of the NSAs are also in need of professional services that can help them raise their level of management. And, as you know, in the last Budget, we have improved our incentive schemes for corporations, either through donations or through contributions of their services, to claim deductions for their taxes as well.

To answer Mr Alex Yam's specific questions about carding athletes and whether our para-athletes are carded, the answer is yes. I believe we have about 120 para-athletes who are carded at the moment and many of our Paralympians have been on full support from Spex schemes for several years. Take our boccia team, for example. Nurul has gone through two cycles, supported by us, and Sze Ning as well for the latest cycle in Rio. But, of course, I must admit that the full-time Spex Scholarships were put in place from 2013 onwards. So, it is something that we have done since 2013.

Minister, just one more simple question. Does the Government believe that the Paralympians should be equally rewarded?

I believe I have devoted quite a significant part of my answer to that question. As far as the Government is concerned, our primary focus is to help our athletes who are driven, motivated and courageous to have the same opportunities to step on that podium, and that support system does not discriminate between able-bodied and disabled athletes.

As I have mentioned, the stipend, the allowance, they get from us is exactly the same. It is equal. And the kind of support ‒ in terms of sports science, sports medicine, physiotherapists, psychologists, counsellors ‒ it is all the same.

So, our focus is to help as many athletes as possible in their journey onto the podium. And what is after the podium is for every one of us to put in our share to stand behind them and to cheer them on.

6 Mr Seah Kian Peng asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (Trade) given the weak economic indicators for the past several months, including rising unemployment, slower growth projections and a weak global economic outlook, whether a recession is imminent and, if so, what are some of the measures that the Government is contemplating.

Mdm Speaker, as a small open economy, Singapore's growth prospects are affected by developments in our external environment. Since the Global Financial Crisis, global growth has been weaker than expected and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been downgrading its global growth forecast almost every year.

In the near term, the global economic outlook is expected to remain weak. Investment demand in key advanced economies remains sluggish, while China's growth continues to moderate as it restructures its economy. Low oil prices have also affected the growth prospects of oil exporters, including those in the region. At the same time, global trade flows have been weak, in part due to the sluggish global growth, as well as in-sourcing trends in economies like China. More recently, the UK's vote in June to leave the European Union has dampened and added uncertainties to the global growth outlook.

So, against this backdrop, growth in the Singapore economy has slowed, from 4.7% in 2013, to 3.3% in 2014 and 2% in 2015. While growth came in at 2.1% in the first half of 2016, it is likely to weaken in the second half of this year. First, externally-oriented services sectors, such as finance and insurance, and wholesale trade, have slowed and could continue to face external headwinds. Second, although manufacturing output saw a pick-up in the second quarter, it has shown signs of weakening on the back of sluggish external demand. Low oil prices have continued to dampen the performance of firms in the marine and offshore engineering segment, as well as those in the precision engineering cluster that support the global oil and gas industry. In line with the weakness seen in the manufacturing sector, non-oil domestic exports (NODX) contracted over the July to August period. Third, domestically-oriented sectors, such as food services and real estate, are likely to remain weak.

Notwithstanding the general slowdown in growth, there are bright spots in the economy. Tourism-related sectors, such as accommodation, have benefited from the recovery in tourist arrivals. Growth in "other services industries" and the information and communications sector is also expected to remain resilient, supported by growth in the education, health and social services, as well as the IT and information services segments respectively.

On balance, MTI expects growth in the second half of the year to come in lower than the 2.1% achieved in the first half of this year. For the full year, MTI's forecast remains at 1% to 2%. However, given the weakness seen in recent incoming data, such as the NODX data, growth may come in at the lower end of the range. MTI will be releasing the advance estimates of third quarter GDP growth on 14 October and the updated growth forecast for 2016 in November.

As the global economic situation remains fluid, the Government will continue to monitor the situation closely and stands ready to respond in the event of a downturn. Depending on the nature and severity of the downturn, the Government is prepared to consider introducing a range of contingency measures, which could include broad-based as well as sector-specific measures. Companies adversely affected by the slowdown can tap on assistance measures that are already put in place.

For instance, as part of Budget 2016, the Government introduced the SME Working Capital Loan scheme to help address SMEs' cash flow concerns and growth financing needs. In view of the challenging conditions faced by our companies in the marine and offshore engineering segment, the Government has also deferred the Foreign Worker Levy increases for the marine sector for one year.

Given the sluggish economic conditions and domestic restructuring, unemployment and redundancies have risen slightly. The Government will work with our tripartite partners to step up efforts to help our displaced workers. These include various career and employment support schemes under SkillsFuture and Adapt and Grow initiatives. Minister Lim Swee Say will be elaborating on these efforts later on.

Despite the global headwinds, it is important that we press on with our efforts to steer our economy towards a more sustainable growth path driven by productivity and innovation. We must continue to transform our industries and create good jobs for Singaporeans over the longer term. Minister Iswaran will be elaborating on some of the efforts in these areas as well.

I thank the Minister for his response. Given the sombre outlook and from my chat with my friends in various businesses, I think the outlook is one of great uncertainty. There seems to be very few spots of positive news. And from the consumers' side, looking at the various reports, consumer confidence is at an all-time low. So, when I put these two together, for many of us, we feel that a recession is imminent.

My question to the Minister is: do we wait for that to come or do we try to put some measures in place to forestall these dark clouds that I see coming?

Mdm Speaker, as I have mentioned just now, our baseline projection is not an outright recession, but we cannot rule out the possibility that the economy will experience some quarters of negative growth on a quarter-on-quarter basis. But, overall, we expect our economy to still grow at between 1% and 2%, albeit on the lower end of the projection.

7 Mr Saktiandi Supaat asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry) (a) how is the Government addressing the sharp fall in private investments which have been contracting for the past two and a half years; (b) what is the Government doing to check the rising number of firm closures this year; and (c) how will falling private investments and economic restructuring affect job creation in the medium term.

8 Er Dr Lee Bee Wah asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry) (a) how is the Government helping companies to remain competitive in the global market; (b) whether there are improvements in productivity across various sectors; and (c) whether the Ministry has looked into how local price increases – from labour, materials, transport to a stronger Singapore dollar – are impacting on the overall business cost.

9 Assoc Prof Randolph Tan asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry) (a) what has been the achievement rates of expected jobs creation from investment commitments made in the last five years; (b) whether an under-supply of suitable manpower was a factor affecting investment commitments at any point during that period; and (c) whether the Ministry anticipates challenges in the supply of manpower to fill the 16,800 jobs that EDB has reported that its 2015 investment commitments are expected to create.

Mdm Speaker, may I have your permission to take Question Nos 7, 8 and 9 together, please?

Yes, please.

Madam, Singapore, like the rest of the world, faces a challenging and uncertain economic environment. However, the impact on our industries has been uneven. Minister Lim Hng Kiang has just spoken on the external headwinds that are affecting industries, such as wholesale trade and marine and offshore engineering, as well as the weakness in industries, such as food services and real estate. Nonetheless, there are other industries, such as information and communications, education, and health and social services, where demand remains resilient.

Er Dr Lee Bee Wah has asked about business costs. There are several components to this. Let me just speak on a few of them. The cost of utilities is expected to remain subdued, given sustained low oil prices. One reference point is the regulated tariffs that households pay because they are in a non-contestable market, and that have declined by 24% from the beginning of last year to the second quarter of 2016. And there are similar trends for those in the industry, especially because they have greater flexibility in negotiating contracts.

Industrial rental index has decreased by 6.8% over the past five quarters. For commercial rents, the office rental index in the central region fell by 12.2%, while the retail rental index also in the central region declined by 9.3% over the same period. And the strong pipeline supply of industrial and commercial space coming on-stream in 2016 should continue to ease rental cost pressures. For labour costs, there are variations across sectors. In the manufacturing sector, unit labour cost (ULC) fell by 0.7%. This is in Q2 on a year-on-year basis on the back of productivity improvements. In contrast, the ULC in the services sector rose by 4.5%. These trends, and their differential impact on our industries, underscore the need to redouble our efforts to improve productivity and to adopt industry-specific strategies to sustain competitiveness.

Against this challenging economic backdrop, the Government seeks to help companies manage immediate pressures but also importantly to adapt to stay competitive in the medium to long term. So, SPRINGSingapore launched the Working Capital Loan (WCL) this year to help address Small and Medium Enterprises' (SMEs) near-term cash flow concerns and growth financing needs. The WCL is expected to catalyse more than S$2 billion of loans over the next three years, and complements existing loan schemes. This year, there has been a strong take-up of SPRINGSingapore's various loan schemes, with over S$1.2 billion worth of loans given to SMEs so far.

Notwithstanding these cyclical headwinds, there remain good market opportunities for our companies. If I can illustrate, the annual growth for the ASEAN region is expected to average 5.2% from 2016 to 2020. In fact, for Asia, it is meant to be even higher. And this is significantly higher, compared to the projected global growth for the same period. To seize these opportunities, our industries, enterprises and workers must transform.

Structurally, Singapore is entering a new mode of growth. Rather than increasing manpower, we must anchor Singapore's competitiveness and growth in increased productivity and greater innovation. So, in April this year, the Government announced a grant budget of over S$2.3 billion under the Enterprise Development Fund (EDF) for the development of local companies. This will support the efforts that are undertaken at the enterprise level to upgrade capabilities, automate processes and internationalise.

In addition, as part of the S$4.5 billion Industry Transformation Programme announced in Budget 2016, the Government will develop customised roadmaps for key industries. This is really what the Industry Transformation Maps are about. Each roadmap will comprise a growth and competitiveness plan, supported by strategies to upgrade productivity, develop skills, promote technology adoption and innovation, and help our companies expand overseas.

Mr Saktiandi Supaat asked about falling private investments. Attracting investments remains a key part of our strategy to grow the Singapore economy. The investment commitments that EDB has secured for fixed asset investments (FAI) have moderated from S$12.1 billion in 2013 to S$11.5 billion in 2015. This is partly due to the uncertain global economic conditions, but it is also a reflection of our targeted approach towards attracting projects that are more consistent with our stage of economic development, manpower policies and international commitments on carbon emissions.

Companies generally understand and accept these constraints, which are by no means unique to Singapore, and have been supportive of our push towards productivity-driven growth. Re-investments from the existing base of companies have focused on increasing productivity through the adoption of automation technologies and upskilling of the workforce. In addition, EDB continues to harness investor interest in the growth markets of Asia and ASEAN to establish "Homes", that is, headquarters that comprise top decision-makers and differentiating competencies. These initiatives do not always entail large FAIs but they create good jobs for Singaporeans.

Assoc Prof Randolph Tan asked if there have been difficulties filling jobs created via EDB's investment commitments. At the project level, EDB works closely with the companies to meet their projected job commitments. And this includes partnering our academic institutions and industry to ensure that Singaporeans are equipped with the appropriate skillsets to take up the diverse range of jobs that are on offer. Specific interventions include curriculum development for pre-employment training (PET), continuing education and training (CET) with local Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), as well as partnerships with companies to provide apprenticeships and other applied learning opportunities for our students. These manpower efforts are aligned with our national SkillsFuture movement, which aims to prepare Singaporeans for jobs of the future, with a judicious complement of foreign manpower to address any skills gaps in the short to medium term.

Madam, the Singapore economy will continue to create and generate good job opportunities for Singaporeans who are willing to upgrade their skills and work in growth sectors. For 2016, EDB expects investment commitments to create 20,000 to 22,000 jobs. This represents an increase in job commitments, compared to 16,800 in 2015 and 18,600 in 2014. At the same time, our industry transformation efforts, which I have described, will also support sustainable job creation in the medium term in both new and existing industries.

Many of these jobs, and others in sectors like education and healthcare, are suitable not just for new entrants to the job market but also for mature workers seeking a new career. The Minister for Manpower will be elaborating on our efforts and measures to help workers adapt and secure these job opportunities.

Madam, successful economic transformation will require the collective effort of our workers, unions, companies, industry associations and the Government. It is critical that our companies stand ready to embrace new technologies and business models and that our workers stay open to learning new skills and capabilities in order to take on new or redesigned jobs. On its part, the Government is firmly committed to supporting our workers and companies through this transformation.

Mdm Speaker, I would like to thank the Minister for the answer and the data that he shared about the drop by about $10 billion in terms of EDB's commitments over the past two years. And he explained that the targeted approach actually led to the decline. In light of the economic transformation and the cyclical headwinds, the data show also, in terms of declining foreign manufacturing investments over the past two and half years or so, I am a bit concerned on that part and I am wondering what the Government's view is in terms of declining foreign manufacturing investments, particularly because the job creation in the manufacturing side would probably create a bit more volume than that on the services side. And what would be the Government's strategy in terms of the declining foreign manufacturing investments in light of the decline in EDB's foreign investment commitments over the next five to 10 years?

Madam, I thank the Member for his questions. First, a point of clarification. It is not a decline of $10 billion. I said $12.1 billion in 2013 and $11.5 billion in 2015. So, it is a different order of magnitude.

Secondly, when talking about manufacturing investments in Singapore, let me talk in general and also specific terms. First, manufacturing is changing. So, it is no longer just about investing in fixed assets, plants, equipment and doing manufacturing in the conventional sense that we understand. In fact, manufacturing has got a very significant complementary aspect. Some call it the "servitisation" of manufacturing. What it basically means is that traditional manufacturers are also embarking on very different service-oriented models.

One example is Rolls Royce. We understand Rolls Royce to be a company that sells engines for aircraft. But Rolls Royce is increasingly moving towards a model where they sell power by the hour. In other words, I do not sell you the engine but I sell you the power that drives the aircraft by the hour. And that means the business model changes. It may not always be reflected as an investment in manufacturing in our context, but, in terms of its impact on the economy and in terms of what we are doing for job creation, it remains absolutely valid. So, in a very general sense, manufacturing is changing.

Having said that, even at the more traditional understanding of manufacturing, we continue to attract good investments. In recent times, Members would have read about the commitment by Micron, which has a substantial investment in semi-conductor manufacturing in the wafer fabrication sector, which is an important part of our electronics cluster in Singapore. Also about AbbVie in bio-pharmaceutical manufacturing.

So, we continue to attract good quality manufacturing investments. But the key is really to make sure that the investments that we attract are consistent with, first, as I have said earlier, our stage of development, because it is no point shoe-horning a manufacturer into our environment if it is not something that is sustainable in the medium to long-term. Far better for us to target the sectors or the part of the value chain that can continue to operate in Singapore in a sustainable way and that will then drive economic growth and job creation.

Mdm Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister two supplementary questions. Just a few days ago, there was a pharmaceutical research company that pulled out of Singapore. I would like to ask the Minister whether is that a concern and what is the real reason. Will there be more companies pulling out of Singapore? The second question is that, on the ground, there are quite a lot of retrenchments as well as pay cuts. Is the Minister concerned with these and are there any measures to be taken soon?

Madam, I thank the Member for her questions. I think she is referring to the announcement about Novartis moving out their tropical disease research facility. I do not want to go into the details of a specific company or what drives their decisions, but let me make a more general point.

First of all, one should not read too much into individual cases because individual companies make decisions for a variety of reasons. It could be because of internal restructuring; sometimes, it could be something as prosaic as a person in charge of that particular line of business deciding they want to run things in a different way. And all these things have got knock-on effects in the way that business is restructured. So, I would not want to extrapolate from that and draw broader conclusions about the viability, for example, in this case, of our pharmaceutical space.

As I have said, just a couple of weeks back, I opened a facility by AbbVie, a bio-pharmaceutical company producing state-of-the-art biological treatments for cancers and various other disease conditions.

So, in the context of Singapore, we continue to attract good investments in this space. We should not be complacent, but it is not something that should cause great alarm because it is in the context of one particular company making a decision on one particular aspect of its activity in Singapore.

The other point was about retrenchments, pay cuts and so on. I think the Minister for Manpower will be addressing several of these points later. But let me just make a more general point. If you look at the job creation data that I have shared, we continue to create jobs and there are adequate jobs in many ways to meet the needs and aspirations of Singaporeans. The real challenge for us is in ensuring that Singaporeans have the right skillsets in order to be able to take those jobs and run with it and develop new careers with it, in the case of those who are switching careers. So, that is really a summary of the situation, and the Minister for Manpower will be able to give a far more detailed explanation.

Madam, I thank the Minister for this very good news, which is that job creation is actually increasing. But I think that is a challenge because we all know about the slack in the labour market. My question, if I may, goes back to the last point that the Minister made, which is, with increasing job creation and the slack in the labour market, what are the challenges? Have we seen what had happened in the last five years, for instance, where we had either been able to or not able to find a match between supply and demand of certain types of skilled manpower?

If I may clarify, the Member's question is whether we have been able to find appropriate manpower to fill the jobs, is that correct?

That is right.

First, I want to just restate the point I made earlier, Mdm Speaker, which is that EDB's efforts continue to generate jobs. There are some sectors, other sectors where also there are jobs being created, for example, in education and healthcare. There are also sectors which are taking a bit of a hit because of external headwinds and, therefore, there is job decline there.

So, you have to look at the economy as a whole. It is uneven, there are pockets where the opportunities exist for companies, for individuals. There are pockets where the environment and the circumstances are more challenging. The point about whether we are able to find appropriate people, Singaporeans, to take up the jobs, this continues to be the key challenge because we are seeing major changes in the way various industries are running, because there is a lot more emphasis, and if I can just take one or two cases in point. In the whole digital economy space, the importance of site security and having people who understand digital space and are able to work with data and do analytics and inform a company's business and marketing strategies, these are very essential skillsets in the new economy. There is a global shortage of people in this sort of space. We are not unique in this. So, we are creating opportunities and there are other sectors I can talk about.

There is always this issue of a skills mismatch, which is why we need to work on this on a few levels. The first is securing the investments and the opportunities so that we actually have a pipeline that Singaporeans can benefit from. The second is to work upstream with our Universities and Institutions of Higher Learning to make sure that the skillsets that are needed are being provided, not just through three-year degree programmes or diploma programmes but even, if necessary, doing some targeted modular programmes which is what we do collectively between MTI and MOM, and our agencies like EDB working with WDA, MOE and the institutions.

That is on the one side; this is more pre-employment for new entrants. But on the other side is really for the mature workers who are looking to switch careers. Harder to do, but it is something that is very important and that is why I have made the point that many of the jobs can actually be taken up by mature workers. But they need to make the move, adapt, take up the relevant skills training and adjustment in order to be able to participate in the new business. And we have seen examples of people doing that.

In the bio-pharmaceutical company that I visited, I saw an individual who was in his late 40s, worked in China in the electronics sector and came back because the company terminated his employment. He came back, he decided he wanted to make a switch, he got into the biopharmaceutical space, he got the training through WDA – and I think it is the Professional Conversion Programme – and now heads the unit there or certain aspects of production.

It is a good example. Individual stories, but demonstrating that the larger strategy can work and we need the individuals to step up and benefit fully from our programmes.

Madam, I am not sure if the Minister has addressed the question by Mr Saktiandi on the number of firms failing and closing but I would like to ask again whether the Minister sees increasing numbers of companies running into serious problems and not surviving.

And related to that, whether as these companies fail, are we at risk of permanently losing these capabilities – engineering and economic capabilities, for example, for the oil and gas sector – the contracting capabilities. And whether the Government will come up with sector-specific measures to help these industries and sectors. For example, the Industry Transformation Map, whether you want to activate this early to help these companies.

I thank the Member for the questions. Let me first clarify, I think the earlier question was working off data provided by ACRA. And I think the data the Member looked at was for September. I understand, because I did a check. ACRA has actually updated the data. In fact, in the first and second quarters of this year, there was net enterprise formation, positive. It was actually not an insignificant number, it was 2,001 for the first quarter and 9,000 in the second quarter. And I think this has got something also to do and there is some explanation there about some technical treatment. So, I would urge Members to check it out and maybe file a PQ to get further clarification.

But the first point I am making is that in the first two quarters of this year, rather than negative, there has actually been positive enterprise formation, at least based on the data we get from ACRA. I think the more important point the Member is raising is really whether we have a concern in terms of what is happening on the ground, in terms of companies. Enterprise formation, we know some companies form SPVs, there is restructuring, these things happen all the time. They do not necessarily reflect or affect what is happening on the ground in terms of actual business and jobs.

So, I would say that, if I go back to the point I made earlier, there is a diversity; if you look at the landscape, it is variegated. Some sectors are doing well or reasonably well, others are having a hard time. Even within the sectors that are challenged, there are companies that are thriving because they have been able to adapt, or they have been able to find a niche and they are doing well.

The fact of the matter is that it is an uneven terrain. It is not so much about having a broad-brush general programme or strategy because that is just going to be wasteful and some would argue that the natural business cycle should be allowed to take its course so that there is some appropriate consolidation and re-channelling of resources at the economy level.

We are mindful there are certain sectors or industries where we do need to be very careful, that we do not, in the process, lose core capabilities that have been built up over a long period of time. Therefore, in those sorts of very specific areas, we are tracking it and we are working on ideas as to how we can do this in a way that does not become so interventionist that it distorts the market, but it minimises the loss of capabilities, which we need to preserve in order to sustain the competitiveness of our companies in those sectors, especially when the situation improves.

The Minister spoke about transformations of the various industries. One feedback I often get from the industries is: how do they align with some of these strategies and sub-strategies because a lot of times the Ministry talks about strategies in very broad terms? From a sector-specific agenda, would the Ministry be sharing specific sector strategies, whether certain sectors will be defocused and others ramped up. I think what the industry is looking for is guidance so that that also helps in terms of manpower deployment and transformation, for example, where do they align to? Would the Ministry be sharing its sub-strategies in a more detailed manner?

The Member raises an important point. First, the Industry Transformation Maps are being developed for 23 sectors which we have talked about. It is a process. We have already announced a couple of them. One is in food services and another is for retail. There will be progressively more of these programmes that will be announced and shared. These programmes go into a great deal of detail in terms of the productivity, innovation, internationalisation and manpower aspects.

Many of the programmes that we have are being, at the backend, integrated and channelled along these lines. For the businesses, in order to understand and navigate the space, the first thing I would say is we will definitely be communicating this not just through major announcements but it will be percolated down through the industry associations and various other channels.

Second, even if the larger transformation plan may not be entirely relevant for a particular business, what they need to do – I am talking about the SMEs in particular – is to get in touch with one of our SME Centres, quite a number of which are now on the ground, through our various chambers and trade associations, or through the trade association and industry association members, or directly with SPRINGSingapore. Then, the dialogue can start on what is appropriate in terms of the companies' own plans and strategies, and how some of the programmes that we have can assist them.

10 Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan asked the Minister for Manpower in light of the Q2 2016 Labour Market report wherein it is indicated that there is a rise in the unemployment rate, a lower rate of re-entry and the number of unemployed persons has now outnumbered job vacancies, what is the Ministry doing to (i) overcome these three trends, including youth unemployment; (ii) help the unemployed, especially the vulnerable who have a lower re-entry rate; and (iii) minimise the skill/job/expectation mismatches that have contributed to their unemployment.

11 Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye asked the Minister for Manpower (a) why the rate of employment among locals has remained stagnant over the past 18 months despite the tightening on foreign manpower supply; and (b) what is being done to address and overcome this trend.

12 Mr Desmond Choo asked the Minister for Manpower with the number of redundancies and retrenchment cases reaching record levels in the first half of 2016, how will the Ministry (i) help affected workers, especially the PMETs, who are the most affected; (ii) assist lower wage workers to find alternative employment quickly; and (iii) prepare our workers for new jobs in industries facing poor economic prospects.

13 Mr Liang Eng Hwa asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether there will be a further rise in job losses in the next 12 months; (b) what are the sectors that are likely to be more impacted; and (c) whether is there a need to tighten up Employment Passes and S Passes as more local PMETs become available due to increasing job losses and slower job growth.

14 Ms Foo Mee Har asked the Minister for Manpower whether the Government will review the Employment Pass scheme in light of increasing redundancies affecting PMEs.

15 Mr Ang Hin Kee asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether there will be enhanced efforts by the various job placement agencies to assist with job matching services for local workers who are retrenched or jobseekers who have been unsuccessful in their job search efforts; (b) what is the Ministry's assessment of employers' readiness level in supporting these efforts; and (c) what can employers do to make job vacancies and requirements known to jobseekers beyond listing on the national Jobs Bank.

16 Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Ministry has any plans to better help retrenched local workers, particularly PMETs, in their job searching process; and (b) whether the list of Professional Conversion Programmes can be expanded to cover more industries and sectors so that PMETs can have more career options.

17 Mr Christopher de Souza asked the Minister for Manpower what programmes and initiatives have been created to assist Singaporeans to secure employment and to encourage companies and employers to create new job vocations and opportunities in the present economic climate.

18 Assoc Prof Daniel Goh Pei Siong asked the Minister for Manpower (a) to date this year, how many PMETs under 40 years of age have been made redundant; (b) what is the rationale to restrict the Career Support Programme for PMETs to those who have been unemployed for six months or more; and (c) whether this restriction to access the programme should be removed for PMETs.

19 Dr Tan Wu Meng asked the Minister for Manpower whether the Ministry will consider upgrading the national Jobs Bank to a national Jobs Registry by (i) making it mandatory for employers to advertise all job openings in parallel within the national Jobs Bank even if the job opening has been advertised through other platforms; and (ii) requiring employers to report hiring outcomes to the Ministry.

20 Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo asked the Minister for Manpower what measures are in place to help displaced workers with new job opportunities and to create more quality jobs.

21 Mr Ang Wei Neng asked the Minister for Manpower how are e2i and other relevant job matching agencies beefing up their effort to help Singaporeans find suitable jobs, especially those affected by job redundancy.

Mdm Speaker, may I have your permission to take Question Nos 10 to 21 together, please?

Yes, please.

Madam, my replies to Parliamentary Questions are normally very short. Today, my reply would not be 12 times longer. So, I will take slightly longer and I hope Members will please bear with me.

Madam, these 12 questions cover three broad areas: major developments in our local market, employment support for our workers and regulation of foreign manpower supply.

In response to Mr Patrick Tay and Mr Melvin Yong, on the ground, there is much concern that local employment growth has been flat. It went up by 700 last year and came down by 200 in the first half of this year, giving a net increase of just 500 over 18 months. I am concerned too.

Fortunately, while the unemployment rate has increased, it did not rise sharply. It exceeded marginally the range of 2.6% - 2.9% registered in the past five years, to reach 3% in June 2016.

I was puzzled. Why did the sharp drop in local employment growth not lead to a sharp rise in unemployment rate? With the help of my colleagues at MOM, I soon discovered that the main reason for the flat growth in local employment was a slowdown in local workforce growth. Let me share what I have learnt with this House.

Mdm Speaker, with your permission, may I display a few charts on the LED, please?

Yes, please. [Slides were shown to hon Members. Please refer to Annex 1.]

In the three years from 2012 to 2014, an average of 226,000 locals joined and 153,000 left the workforce each year, giving an average net increase of 73,000, or 79,000 if we were to include the self-employed.

But in 2015, the number of locals entering dropped significantly by about 36,000, while the number leaving increased by about 37,000. This is a swing of 73,000 and resulted in the flat growth in our local employment to just 700.

This swing was partly cyclical. We saw more people left employment after termination and completion of contract and casual employment. More also left to pursue further studies and upgrading.

But the swing was also structural, across all age groups. For those aged 25-64, our labour force participation rate of 83.1% is already high and showing signs of plateauing. For the younger ones aged 15-24, the size of the cohort entering the labour force had already peaked in 2013 and started to decline since then. More importantly, the number of people retiring is also on the rise, doubling over the last two years. This will continue as more baby boomers enter retirement.

In short, even though the numbers of exits and entries in our local workforce will fluctuate from year to year due to prevailing economic conditions and policy factors, but with ageing and lower birth rates, coupled with our relatively high labour force participation rate and low unemployment rate, we will see a continued slowdown of local labour force growth, towards negligible levels, or even stagnation in the next decade.

This has three major implications. First, we must work our way towards healthier economic growth. Even though flat local employment growth in the past 18 months did not lead to a sharp rise in unemployment rate or any drop in our labour force participation, we are still concerned that this could still happen if the global economic situation does not improve or worsen further. We must make sure that the current low growth of 1%-2% is transitional. Our future norm should be 2%-3% of quality growth, not 1%-2% of low growth.

This is because our ultimate objective in pursuing growth is not in growth itself, but to create jobs in sufficient quantity and of good enough quality for our people to have better jobs, better wages and better careers.

Madam, with our local workforce growth slowing, it does not mean that we can afford to move slower, too, in our efforts to create jobs.

I will use 2015 as an illustration. Even though local employment went up by only 700, but the number of locals looking for jobs was many times higher than that. We must not forget that there were actually 190,000 new entries of young locals and re-entries of mature locals in that year alone. Many of them were not just looking for the same jobs vacated by those who have left employment. With better education and skills profile, they wanted better jobs to meet their higher expectations and aspirations. The same also applies to those who were already in the workforce. And I think this is good. This is also why we can never slow down.

To move faster, we have mobilised industry leaders, unions and economic agencies to create and re-create many more quality jobs in more than 20 sectors, as explained by Minister Lim Hng Kiang and Minister Iswaran. We have to make sure that this innovative growth of our future economy will also be an inclusive growth for all our people.

Madam, second, our policy on foreign manpower must be well-balanced. At one extreme, if we try to make up for the drop in local labour force growth by taking in many more foreign workers, the pace of our restructuring will slow. Eventually, we will become overly reliant on foreign manpower and our wages will also stagnate without productivity gain.

At the other extreme, if we try to reduce the growth of foreign manpower to zero, zero local labour force growth plus zero foreign manpower growth will give us zero growth in total labour force. Our total labour force will eventually stagnate. And if labour productivity growth continues to remain at the current level – then zero growth in local workforce, zero growth in foreign manpower, plus zero growth in productivity as we have seen in recent years – it will give us zero growth in our GDP. Our economy will eventually stagnate, too, and we obviously cannot allow this to happen.

This is why we are transforming our industries for higher productivity gains. We need to move towards higher productivity gains. At the same time, we are adopting a balanced approach in managing the inflow of foreign manpower.

In response to Mr Liang Eng Hwa and Ms Foo Mee Har, the annual increase in foreign manpower has dropped significantly by more than two-thirds, from the last peak of 80,000 in 2011 to about 24,000 in the past two years. We are increasingly more selective in terms of qualifications and experience of the individual foreigners. At the same time, more importantly, to ensure that our people are treated fairly at all levels in all industries, we have included the adoption of fair and progressive HR practices as part of our Work Pass criteria.

This balanced approach will enable our combined workforce of locals and foreigners to complement each other better and compete more aggressively for good investments globally, such as the opening of Micron's expanded facility here last month, as cited by Minister Iswaran. We need to compete and win many more of such good investments so that we can keep creating better quality growth for the economy and, more importantly, better quality jobs for our people.

Madam, third, we must minimise job-skill mismatches and maximise the connectivity between job opportunities and jobseekers.

In response to Mr Desmond Choo and Mr Liang Eng Hwa, we share their concern that we could see a higher number of layoffs than before, especially in sectors facing weak demand. We are doing more to help our workers in this period of economic transition in terms of training support, wage support, job search and career conversion.

In response to Mr Patrick Tay, Mr Ang Wei Neng, Mr Ang Hin Kee, Mr Christopher de Souza, Ms Jessica Tan and Mr Desmond Choo, we have stepped up job matching and career services with the introduction of the Adapt and Grow initiative this year.

In the first eight months of this year, Workforce Singapore and e2i have assisted 20,000 active jobseekers. More than 13,000 of them managed to find jobs in various sectors, including Infocomm Technology, Healthcare, Early Childhood Care and Education, Professional Services, Admin and Support, Biologics Manufacturing, Transport and Logistics, just to name the key ones.

The number of successful job placements is also much more than last year. For the PMETs, the number of PMETs who managed to secure jobs with our employment support went up by 45%; for the rank-and-file workers, it went up by 12%. In fact, of the 13,000 successful jobseekers, 45% of them, or 5,700, were PMETs, and 55%, or 7,300, were rank-and-file workers. They came from various age groups – one in three were below 40 years old, one in four between 40 and 49, and 40%, or two in five, were aged 50 and above. In other words, we are helping not just the younger workers but also helping the middle-aged as well as the mature workers to secure jobs.

We are doing more for the rank-and-file workers. We stepped up our Reskilling for Jobs initiative. We have also created more work trial programmes to help the rank-and-file workers to try out jobs which they may not be familiar or comfortable with. They try out the jobs first. After three to six months, they can decide whether to continue.

We are also doing much more for the PMETs. In response to Mr Melvin Yong, we rolled out 24 new Professional Conversion Programmes (PCPs) this year in 14 sectors, such as International Trade and Cybersecurity. We started the year with only 22 PCPs. By the end of this year, we will have more than 50 PCPs to help many more PMETs to convert to professions and industries with growth potential.

We have also provided extra support for mid-career PMETs aged 40 and above. We believe that they need the extra help. We are doing more for them, especially those who have been unemployed for more than six months. The Career Support Programme (CSP) was introduced a year ago to help them with wage support.

In response to the questions from Assoc Prof Daniel Goh, we are seeing a higher share of PMETs among residents made redundant. In fact, in the first half of this year, of the 5,700 locals retrenched, about 4,000 of them were PMETs. In other words, 70% of local retrenched workers were PMETs. We have, therefore, extended the CSP, since May this year, to two additional groups of PMETs.

Firstly, all PMETs made redundant aged 40 and above, even if they have been unemployed for less than six months, we waived the requirement for six months of unemployment. At the same time, we have also extended this CSP to all PMETs made redundant and unable to find jobs after six months, even if they are less than 40 years old. For the younger ones, likewise, we have waived the age requirement as well – after six months of unemployment.

Madam, a job is the best welfare and full employment is the best protection for our people and our workers.

Our efforts in industry transformation, as outlined by Minister Lim Hng Kiang and Minister Iswaran, will lead to better jobs and better careers. Our efforts through SkillsFuture will lead to better workers with deeper skills and newer skills. And with Adapt and Grow, the focus of MOM is to connect them better to each other – better jobs to better workers; better workers to better jobs.

The National Jobs Bank has been useful in helping our local jobseekers gain access to more jobs, especially PMET jobs. Today, about 180,000 registered users are gaining access to the Jobs Bank and about 25,700 employers have registered with the Jobs Bank. At any time, there are about 60,000 active jobs in our Jobs Bank looking for workers and we receive about 7,000 job applications every day.

In response to Dr Tan Wu Meng, we do not intend to make it mandatory for all companies to post all job vacancies in the Jobs Bank and to report all hiring outcomes to MOM, as suggested.

Instead, we will transform the National Jobs Bank into a one-stop and non-stop online marketplace. It will bring together employers, including those currently not advertising on the Jobs Bank, to bring all their jobs to this marketplace and to connect these employers and their jobs to active and passive jobseekers of all ages. Jobseekers will be able to explore new career opportunities and conduct job searches on their own through this online marketplace anytime, anywhere without having to wait for the next job fair. They can be young adults looking for their first jobs, those in mid-careers looking for their next careers, or mature workers looking to remain active.

In response to Mr Desmond Choo, for those who need advice on what jobs and careers to pursue, whether they are current jobseekers or what the Secretary-General of NTUC called "the future jobseekers", such as those vulnerable workers in industries facing poor prospects, we will leverage on the Skills Framework to help them more and serve them better.

With the Skills Framework, jobseekers can clearly see what are the career paths, occupations, skills requirements and training programmes available to them in every major sector. The Skills Frameworks for Hotel and Accommodation Services, and Early Childhood Care and Education have already been launched.

If I may just share this with Members, this is the Skills Framework for the Hotel sector. With this Skills Framework, you can see clearly there are four career paths for anyone to pursue – from front desk to housekeeping, to sales and marketing, to revenue management. I asked them what happened to the fifth path, F&B. They said that would be coming under the F&B Skills Framework. So, any jobseekers can see clearly these are the four plus one-to-come career paths they can pursue.

In here, they can see very clearly there are altogether 91 job functions they can apply for. And if they want to apply for any one of these 91 job functions, there are 291 job skillsets they can pursue. If they want to pursue any of those skillsets, there are more than 1,000 training programmes, all laid out in place for them to pursue.

This is how effective the Skills Framework is and will be in the future. We will be using the Skills Framework, sector by sector, to provide career coaching, counselling to jobseekers to help them discover for themselves which career, job or path is more suitable for them.

Last, but not least, even salary range is defined in here. So, you see the jobs ladder, skills ladder as well as salary ladder. And as I have mentioned earlier, the skills framework for two sectors has just been launched and more will come. Madam, in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Although local employment is still rising, the speed of growth has slowed down. With the trends of an ageing population and falling birth rates continuing, local employment will peak and stop growing after 10 years.

If we do not adjust our strategy and continue to increase jobs by large numbers, most of the added jobs will be undertaken by foreign employees. This will do more harm than good to our country and people. Hence, the challenge we face in terms of job creation is no longer the more jobs the better, but the more the better jobs, the better.

Short-term pains are better than long-term pains. What we are facing now is a slowing economy and a rising redundancy rate. This is the price we have to pay as a result of economic transformation in a weak global economy. This is unavoidable.

I urge everyone to face this challenge together and persevere. We must make sure that the current difficulties are only short-term transitional pains and not allow them to develop into long-term pains of the new normal.

We must assure our SMEs and do our best to help them transform.

More importantly, we must assure our workers and do our best to help them learn new skills and adapt to new jobs.

Let us work together and quicken our steps to walk out of this transitional period as fast as we can and achieve better and more sustainable economic growth. This way, everyone will have better jobs, remuneration and career. Let us work hard together!

(In English): Madam, in conclusion, as we enter the next stage towards 2%-3% quality growth, I assure our fellow Singaporeans that the tripartite partners are doing our very best for them, at the national as well as sectoral levels.

We need our businesses to do their part, to transform and grow. At the same time, we need our people to do their part, too, to adapt and grow.

Last time round, during the Global Financial Crisis, we cut costs together, we saved jobs together, we upturned the downturn together. This time round, our challenge is to transform together, adapt together, so that we can all grow together. Working together, I believe that we can succeed once again.

I thank the Minister for a very comprehensive bilingual response. I have three questions in the area of strengthening the Singaporean Core, mature PMETs and employment growth.

The first question is on strengthening the Singaporean Core. As we know, last year's record number of local resident retrenchment and layoff made up 71% of the total. This year, I expect another round of record retrenchments and also PMETs would form the bulk, at least about 70% for those laid off.

In our efforts to strengthen the Singaporean Core, perhaps the Minister can give an update on what efforts are being done under the Fair Consideration Framework as well as identifying and handling the "triple weaks" to level the playing field for local PMEs.

On the second question about mature PMETs, anecdotally, we still hear of mature PMETs in their 40s and 50s facing challenges in their job search, even when they do relevant training in growth sectors. They feel challenged; sometimes, it could be ageism; sometimes, it could be mindset. Can MOM, together with our tripartite partners, do even more and do even better in this area?

Finally, in terms of employment growth, the Minister has shared that employment growth has dropped sharply. With the exodus of the baby boomers in the coming years and also lower fertility rate and the slower entrance of new workers, does MOM foresee that in the longer term, in five or 10 years' time, we will be able to sustain that one-third to two-thirds local to foreign manpower ratio? Is it possible to sustain that?

Mdm Speaker, first, on Fair Consideration Framework, in February this year, we identified 100 companies that we considered as being "triple weak". We subjected their EP applications to closer scrutiny. In the last six months, TAFEP has been working very closely with them to improve their HR practices.

Of the 100 companies, about 20%, or one in five, responded by taking part in our job fairs and stepping up training for the locals. Some even have knowledge transfer programmes for the locals. For this one-fifth of companies, on the recommendation of TAFEP, we have decided to remove them from the watch-list because their HR practices are now on par with the industry standard.

For the remaining 80%, even though many of them have made some improvements, we think that a lot more can be done. We will continue to monitor them. Among them, right now, there are about 300 EP applications still being closely scrutinised, until we are convinced that they have met our fair consideration requirement.

At the same time, we will continue to identify more of these "triple weak" companies. So far, we have identified another 180 of them. If we put 180 plus the 80% of the 100, we now have altogether about 250 companies on our watch-list. The whole purpose is not to punish them, but rather to work with them, engage them and enhance their HR practices to give our Singaporeans fair consideration.

On the second point of whether we can do more for the mature PMETs, I would say, certainly, yes. We are stepping up our effort. Earlier, I talked about expanding PCP from 22 programmes to at least 50 by the end of this year. More importantly, we are working with more and more companies to open up their job openings to mature workers and to those on the PCP.

What we are doing now is, whenever we organise a job fair, whether it is a virtual or physical job fair, the employers will indicate whether they are prepared to take in mature workers for a particular job under CSP or take in workers who are not job-ready but are prepared to go for job conversion under PCP. In most cases, it is for both.

Our intention is to keep growing the list of employers who are prepared to open up more of their jobs under PCP and CSP. In time to come, when the online marketplace is ready, we hope to have a pavilion specially for the mature workers, either on conversion or mid-career switch.

The third question about whether we are able to sustain the one-third to two-thirds local to foreign manpower ratio, right now, we are still about there. Looking ahead to the next five to 10 years, will we be able to sustain the one-third to two-thirds ratio? I would say the key consideration is productivity gain. If we are able to strive for the 2%-3% productivity gain, then the pressure on increasing the total workforce would be less. Therefore, I am not able to give you any projection. But I would say that for now and in the near future, let us focus and apply our mind to innovation and productivity because that is the most sustainable way for us to sustain our growth in the long term without becoming overly dependent on foreign manpower.

Recently, I attended a job fair organised by e2i at one of the community centres. I noticed that employers who had placed jobs were familiar employers. They have been active before. They have adopted the suite of programmes the Minister recommended. I would like to ask the Minister to give an assessment about the other late majority, other employers who have placed jobs in the Jobs Bank but have not come out very actively to participate in job fairs. How do we, therefore, nudge them to be more proactive in placing locals and adopting the suite of programmes that he mentioned earlier?

Madam, for the job fairs at the community level, I would not be surprised if you keep seeing about the same faces. Because for our job fairs in the community, we try to reach out to employers where the jobs are nearby in the community. Since the companies do not move in and out of communities too quickly, as a result, you are likely to see more of the familiar faces.

Having said that, I do share Mr Ang's concern whether we can keep encouraging more and more companies to step forward, to open up their jobs to our locals. I am happy to say that we are seeing that. For example, in the hotel sector, they have 2,000 vacancies, and 40% or 800 of them, are PMET jobs.

We have good jobs. The companies are all very keen to look for local workers. As I have mentioned, our key challenge is how to connect them better. We will continue to organise more and more job fairs. At the same time, we want to evolve towards this online marketplace as quickly as possible.

Madam, the pain and anxiety felt by individuals and families affected by job losses are palpable. Disruptions in the current job market are intensifying, impacting even the highly trained and younger PMEs. I urge the Minister to put in place measures that give Singaporeans a leg up. Specifically, two supplementary questions for the Minister.

First, will the Minister adjust the Employment Pass (EP) scheme such that Singaporeans with the necessary skills and experience are provided with the opportunities to be considered first for vacancies? Second, will the Minister consider providing incentives to employers to retain Singaporeans over EP holders during a retrenchment exercise, for example, widening the Career Support Programme so that employers can access them to keep Singaporeans employed, rather than wait for them to be retrenched, that is, keep them employed as they restructure their businesses?

Mdm Speaker, the first question about EP, whether we can adopt the policy of Singaporeans-first in processing an EP application, I am hesitant about this. If I may go back to the example highlighted by Mr Iswaran. Micron has just opened their expanded facility with an investment of a few billion dollars. For that facility which comes with such a heavy investment, they need to have a few hundred PMETs to keep the place running non-stop. If MOM were to come in and say, "You have to keep recruiting Singaporeans first until no more Singaporeans would take the jobs before you allow foreigners to take on these jobs", my worry is that if we have that Singaporeans-first reputation, eventually, EDB, MTI, all our agencies will have problems competing for the best investments in the world.

Let me also put it this way. If you look at the EP and at the PMET levels, a vast majority of PMETs in Singapore are local. Many years from now, we will still have EPs in our workforce. I have illustrated earlier to Members that our local workforce growth is slowing down. So, we do need to continue to have foreigners.

Having EP in our system is not a bad thing. But what is bad is if it leads to unfair consideration for the locals. What we are doing is to tighten the EP criteria to maximise the complementarity between EP and the locals. I would say that the best way for us to help the locals is to focus on enhancing their employability. This is something we have been doing.

The other point is about retrenchment ‒ whether we can provide incentives for companies to retain locals. The answer is yes. We are already doing that. For companies which retain their locals, we provide a lot of support to them. Let me give a simple example.

Earlier, in the Committee of Supply (COS) this year, I announced that we have extended the PCP to in-house PCP. In other words, PMETs, instead of being retrenched, if the company is able to redeploy them within the company, we will support them with the PCP. Under the PCP, during the retraining period of up to a maximum of 18 to 24 months, we subsidise their wages and training programme. These are things we are already doing.

On the whole, I just want to caution that, firstly, retrenchment is not by individuals. Retrenchment is by an operation. Earlier, we talked about a company transferring its R&D operations out of Singapore. The whole team will be affected, whether you are local or an EP holder, the entire operation will be affected. Secondly, at the PMET level, the local PMETs outnumber the foreign PMETs in most cases. That is why we are concerned that we will see more local PMETs being affected. That is the reason why I mentioned earlier we are going to do a lot more to help them to adapt and grow again.

Mdm Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister this. The CSP is obviously a very useful programme for all PMETs. I am wondering why restrict the access to the CSP for younger PMETs under 40 years old to only those who are at least unemployed for six months. Why not open CSP to all PMETs, regardless of age?

Madam, we are trying to help all PMETs. In helping them, we recognise that some PMETs may need more help than the others. We have observed that the mature PMETs face more challenges. I will give a simple example. For the mature PMETs, many of them have been working in the industry for 10, 20 years, and their wages are higher. When they are affected by redundancy, when they move on to another company, to command a similar level of salary is always a big challenge. As a result, the pay cut that the mature PMETs have to take is normally higher than that for the younger PMETs.

The purpose of the CSP is to minimise the wage cut. For example, if a PMET is earning between $4,000 and $7,000, under the CSP, we subsidise their wages for the first year. Our intention is to help these mature PMETs to move to a new company with a new employer, hopefully, without having to suffer too severe a pay cut. The same may not necessarily apply to the younger PMETs.

Here, it is not a case of giving less support to the younger PMETs, but rather giving more support to the mature PMETs.

I thank the Minister for his answer and, especially, the proposal for an online jobs marketplace that is one-stop and non-stop. But the strength of a marketplace is also in its centrality. Will there be incentives for employers across the board to join in, to take part, to make sure that the marketplace is the centre of gravity among the many competing job portals also in the private sector, so that we can have a best source of jobs, a best source of opportunities; a marketplace that is ‒ if I may say ‒ bigger, deeper, better?

Mdm Speaker, I agree with the Member Dr Tan Wu Meng. Our challenge is to make sure that the online marketplace will be attractive to both employers as well as jobseekers. For the employers applying for EPs, they will have to go to the National Jobs Bank. For them, their presence in the marketplace will be mandatory, through the National Jobs Bank.

For those where the jobs are meant for locals, our aim is to make the online marketplace so attractive that many of them will come on to the marketplace on a voluntary basis. We believe that, as Dr Tan has mentioned, if we can make this marketplace a vibrant one, a comprehensive one, more and more employers should want to come on board because it would be easier for them to look for the right workers.

Mdm Speaker, in our Meet-the-People Sessions (MPS), we always hear sad cases of employees who are quite skilled and have high abilities being retrenched and losing their jobs. I would like to ask the Minister, as we scale up the PCPs and the CSP, can particular emphasis be given to how we can preserve the skills or, if not, preserve the abilities? They may have rich experience and so on, so how do we preserve these? This is so that, as a whole, our human capital is preserved and retained so that we can use that to grow our economy.

Mdm Speaker, I think Mr Liang touched on a very important point. In professional conversion, the last thing we want to do is to see a person giving up all the years of experience, expertise and skills. Therefore, our priority in helping the mid-career PMETs is through P-Max, which helps to match PMETs to the SMEs.

P-Max is functioning very well. The response from SMEs is encouraging. At the same time, we are also seeing more and more of the mature PMETs now willing to explore opportunities in the SME sector.

P-Max is our way to help the SMEs to tap on the skills and experience of the mature PMETs and vice versa.

On top of that, another area which we are now exploring is that for mature PMETs with many years of skills, experience and expertise, we think that the private placement companies may also be of great help to them. We have started trying out the services of the private placement companies. We are now in the process of scaling them up. So, in the near future, you will hear us announcing a partnership programme with the private placement community to help middle to senior levels of PMETs to pursue job openings in a more effective way.

22 Er Dr Lee Bee Wah asked the Minister for Transport (a) when will LTA start enforcement action against errant users of personal mobility devices (PMDs) and what will be the intensity of such enforcement action; (b) whether other means, such as CCTVs or investigations of public complaints, will be used; (c) whether persons who have been in accidents with PMDs can seek assistance from LTA; (d) whether lack of PMD licence plates hinders investigations; and (e) whether LTA will reconsider introducing compulsory insurance.

23 Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Minister for Transport (a) whether there are any further plans or measures to reduce the frequency of accidents caused by PMDs or electric bikes colliding with pedestrians; (b) how does the Ministry ensure that PMD users will avoid using roads; and (c) whether new measures will be introduced to ensure that all electric PMDs in use or being brought into Singapore have appropriate speed limiters and that all PMD users adhere to the prescribed speeds.

24 Mr Zaqy Mohamad asked the Minister for Transport how can the Ministry improve the safety of pedestrians given the recent spate of accidents involving e-scooters.

25 Assoc Prof Randolph Tan asked the Minister for Transport whether there has been an increase in cycling or the use of PMDs on footpaths by persons doing so in groups of two or more and whether such usage by groups is supported by the current design of our footpaths.

26 Assoc Prof Randolph Tan asked the Minister for Transport whether the tendency of certain cyclists and users of PMDs to switch between footpaths and roadways is a danger to other road users and whether the Ministry considers it necessary to address this issue as part of its deliberations on policy about allowing cyclists and PMD users on footpaths.

27 Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo asked the Minister for Transport what additional measures can be taken to ensure safety for pedestrians and those who use the e-scooter, especially in areas of high pedestrian traffic and on public roads.

28 Dr Tan Wu Meng asked the Minister for Transport (a) how many accidents involving collisions between pedestrians and (i) bicycles or (ii) PMDs have been reported over the past one year; and (b) whether LTA will reassess mandating compulsory insurance by owners of bicycles and PMDs to cover third party claims arising from accidents.

29 Mr Ang Wei Neng asked the Minister for Transport (a) whether the Ministry can provide an update on the plan to allow users of PMDs to share the pavement with pedestrians in the light of recent accidents involving e-scooters; (b) whether the Ministry is considering making it compulsory for users of e-scooters or equivalent to buy insurance plans that cover third party liability and accident damage; and (c) what are the recourses available to victims who are involved in accidents with users of PMDs.

Mdm Speaker, may I have your permission to take Question Nos 22 to 29 together?

Yes, please.

There are altogether eight questions which reflect the valid concerns of the public, particularly in light of a recent accident that occurred in Pasir Ris. Like Members, I was most upset and saddened by the accident, and I hope that the injured person, Mdm Ang, will make a full recovery soon.

In the meantime, Police investigations are ongoing and, when they are completed, we hope to have a better understanding of the accident.

In response to Dr Tan Wu Meng's question, there were 12 reported on-road accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists in the 12 months to June this year. For off-road cases, Police records currently do not distinguish between accidents caused by PMDs or bicycles and other offences causing hurt. Going forward, LTA, which is now the lead agency for active mobility, will be tracking these.

As Members know, when used safely and responsibly, bicycles and PMDs offer great convenience and benefits. They are environmentally friendly, promote a healthy lifestyle and are affordable. In many cities around the world, there is growing interest to use bicycles and PMDs to get around. City planners and administrators also see benefits in promoting their use.

However, the careless behaviour of a small minority of users has caused accidents and led some members of the public to oppose their proliferation. It would be unfortunate if we allowed the careless behaviour of this small minority to prevent the larger majority of responsible and considerate cyclists and PMD users from enjoying the benefits of such travel modes.

The sensible approach is to adopt measures that will help prevent accidents. Earlier this year, the Active Mobility Advisory Panel, which comprises representatives from a broad spectrum of society, issued a list of recommendations on how this can be achieved. The recommendations were wholly accepted by the Government and will be tabled for debate in Parliament soon.

Let me briefly recount the key measures. First, we will not allow any device heavier than 20 kg or wider than 70 cm, or have a maximum speed that can exceed 25 km/h to be used on any public paths, because these devices have high propensity for serious accidents. Power-assisted bicycles, even if they meet these criteria, will not be allowed on footpaths.

Second, we will regulate the behaviour of cyclists and PMD users on public paths. All must observe a speed limit of 15 km/h on footpaths and 25 km/h on cycling paths. They must also abide by a code of conduct. For example, cyclists and PMD users must always give way to pedestrians, and slow down and be prepared to dismount when approaching crowded areas, such as bus stops.

Third, we have already stepped up our enforcement efforts. The Land Transport Authority had set up a dedicated team of Active Mobility Enforcement Officers, and since May this year, the team has been patrolling hotspots where many cyclists and PMD users share paths with pedestrians. These enforcement officers have issued advisories to over 700 cyclists and PMD users for unsafe behaviours. This is about 5% of those that they engaged. In other words, what that means is that the vast majority of cyclists and PMD users have been observed to be riding safely and responsibly. In addition, LTA has conducted close to 20 joint operations with the Traffic Police to clamp down on reckless riding behaviour, and will continue with such enforcement operations.

Fourth, we have also stepped up education efforts. LTA launched the Safe Riders Campaign in April this year. The Safe Cycling Programme, which will start by February next year, will strengthen previous campaigns by also educating cyclists and PMD users about the new rules and code of conduct. We are also partnering the community to roll out the Active Mobility Patrol scheme in more than 20 constituencies, where we will mobilise volunteers to join in the education outreach. LTA has also engaged retailers of PMDs to educate them about the new rules and, migh It add, the penalties. This is so that they are aware of the criteria for devices that can be used on public paths and the consequences of selling illegal devices.

Some Members have asked if we should register bicycles and PMDs and mandate third party insurance. These were suggestions that the Panel considered. In the end, they assessed that registration and compulsory insurance would be too onerous and costly for the vast majority of cyclists and PMD users who behave responsibly and safely. However, power-assisted bicycles, which travel on roads and are typically prone to modification, should be registered. The Government concurred with the panel's assessment.

Cities with a strong culture of active mobility, like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, likewise, do not mandate registration or insurance. Like in those cities, pedestrians in Singapore who are injured in accidents can obtain compensation by initiating civil lawsuits or through private settlements. If the offender is prosecuted and convicted in a criminal Court, the Court will consider if compensation to the victim should be paid.

The new rules and enforcement and education efforts will help to build a culture of responsible and safe sharing of space. In many cases, safety is also about practising common sense, for example, by using paths in single file when the path is narrow, slowing down in crowded areas and not switching between footpaths and roads suddenly.

Many densely populated cities, like Tokyo and Amsterdam, have demonstrated that cyclists and pedestrians can co-exist harmoniously in the same space. Clearly, we are not there yet and it is still very much "work in progress", but with the co-operation and patience of all Singaporeans, let us try to build a culture of safety and civic mindedness, so that everyone can enjoy the benefits of active mobility, whether it is walking, cycling or using PMDs.

Order. End of Question Time.

[Pursuant to Standing Order No 22(3), Written Answers to Question Nos 33-38, 40-44, 46, 49-57, 59, 62-64, 66-76, 79, 81, 83-89 and 91 on the Order Paper are reproduced in the Appendix. Question Nos 30-32, 39, 45, 47-48, 58, 60-61, 65, 77-78, 80, 82 and 90 have been postponed to the next available Sitting of Parliament.]

[(proc text) "to provide for the regulation of certain credit bureaus, the credit reporting business, and certain members of these credit bureaus to whom the credit bureaus provide customer information, and for matters connected with any of these, and to make related and consequential amendments to certain other Acts", (proc text)]

[(proc text) presented by the Minister for Trade and Industry (Trade) (Mr Lim Hng Kiang); read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available Sitting of Parliament, and to be printed. (proc text)]

[(proc text) "to amend the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (1999 Reprint) and to make related amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (Amendment) Act 1996 (Act 41 of 1996)", (proc text)]

[(proc text) presented by the Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security (Mr Teo Chee Hean); read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available Sitting of Parliament, and to be printed. (proc text)]

[(proc text) "to amend the Merchant Shipping (Maritime Labour Convention) Act 2014 (Act 6 of 2014) and to make a related amendment to the Work Injury Compensation Act (Chapter 354 of the 2009 Revised Edition)", (proc text)]

[(proc text) presented by the Senior Minister of State for Transport (Mrs Josephine Teo); read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available Sitting of Parliament, and to be printed. (proc text)]

[(proc text) "to amend the Telecommunications Act (Chapter 323 of the 2000 Revised Edition) and to make related amendments to the Info-communications Media Development Authority Act 2016 (Act 22 of 2016)", (proc text)]

[(proc text) presented by the Minister for Communications and Information (Assoc Prof Dr Yaacob Ibrahim); read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available Sitting of Parliament, and to be printed. (proc text)]

[(proc text) "to amend the Fire Safety Act (Chapter 109A of the 2000 Revised Edition)", (proc text)]

[(proc text) presented by the Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs (Mr Desmond Lee); read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available Sitting of Parliament, and to be printed. (proc text)]

[(proc text) "to amend the National Registration Act (Chapter 201 of the 1992 Revised Edition) and to make related amendments to the Registration of Births and Deaths Act (Chapter 267 of the 1985 Revised Edition)", (proc text)]

[(proc text) presented by the Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs (Mr Desmond Lee); read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available Sitting of Parliament, and to be printed. (proc text)]

[(proc text) "to amend the Child Development Co-Savings Act (Chapter 38A of the 2002 Revised Edition)", (proc text)]

[(proc text) recommendation of President signified; presented by the Minister for Social and Family Development (Mr Tan Chuan-Jin); read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available Sitting of Parliament, and to be printed. (proc text)]

[(proc text) "to amend the Income Tax Act (Chapter 134 of the 2014 Revised Edition) and to make related amendments to the Economic Expansion Incentives (Relief from Income Tax) Act (Chapter 86 of the 2005 Revised Edition), the Goods and Services Tax Act (Chapter 117A of the 2005 Revised Edition) and the Stamp Duties Act (Chapter 312 of the 2006 Revised Edition)", (proc text)]

[(proc text) recommendation of President signified; presented by the Senior Minister of State for Finance (Ms Indranee Rajah); read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available Sitting of Parliament, and to be printed. (proc text)]

Order. I propose to take the break now. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair at 4.25 pm. Order.

Sitting accordingly suspended

at 4.05 pm until 4.25 pm.

Sitting resumed at 4.25 pm

[Mdm Speaker in the Chair]

[(proc text) Order for Second Reading read. (proc text)]

Mdm Speaker, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

This Bill will amend the Central Provident Fund Act, or CPF Act, in four areas.

First, provide CPF members with the flexibility to make advance applications for a lump-sum withdrawal from their Retirement Account upon reaching their Payout Eligibility Age (PEA). Second, allow payouts under the Retirement Sum Scheme to begin automatically upon the member reaching 70 years of age. Third, fully effect the MediSave changes relating to the introduction of the Basic Healthcare Sum (BHS) which took effect from 1 January 2016. Fourth, make various amendments to clarify and streamline the administration of some parts of the CPF system.

Madam, the first amendment is to implement the recommendation by the CPF Advisory Panel to allow members who turned age 55 in 2013 or later to make a lump-sum withdrawal of up to 20% from their Retirement Accounts when they reach PEA.

With this change, members will have three options on their lump-sum withdrawal. First, withdraw the lump sum starting from their PEA birthday. Second, defer withdrawing the lump sum beyond their payout start date for CPF LIFE or the Retirement Sum Scheme by transferring this lump sum to the Ordinary Account. Third, convert the lump sum into monthly payouts through CPF LIFE or the Retirement Sum Scheme.

The second amendment simplifies the activation of CPF payouts for members on the Retirement Sum Scheme.

Today, members who join the CPF LIFE scheme will receive payouts automatically when they reach age 70. However, members on the Retirement Sum Scheme have to apply to start their payouts. Some of them may not have done so despite receiving reminders from CPF Board around two months before their PEA.

We are, therefore, amending the CPF Act to allow for automatic starting of payouts at age 70 for members on the Retirement Sum Scheme. This approach is similar to that for CPF LIFE and will start in 2018. About one in three members are expected to benefit from the automatic starting of payouts under the Retirement Sum Scheme.

The third set of amendments updates the CPF Act to support the implementation of BHS which took effect on 1 January 2016.

The BHS was introduced by MOH for CPF members to meet their basic subsidised healthcare needs in old age. BHS is fixed for each cohort when they turn 65 years old. It is the maximum amount a member can set aside in his MediSave Account. Any additional MediSave contributions above BHS are transferred to the member's Special or Retirement Accounts to increase his retirement income. In addition, members aged 55 and above now no longer need to top up their MediSave Accounts, before withdrawing from their Ordinary and Special Accounts.

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To fully effect these changes, we are amending the CPF Act to remove obsolete provisions relating to the MediSave Minimum Sum and fix the BHS for each cohort when they turn 65 years old.

The fourth and last set of amendments provides greater clarity and efficiency in the administration of some parts of the CPF system and this includes replacing the Minimum Sum with the Retirement Sum, clarifying the administrative financial penalties framework, recovery of Government grants and other payments made in error and catering for members whose birthdays fall on 29 February. I will provide just one example on simplifying the MediSave top up process for family members.

Today, members aged 55 and above who have already set aside their cohort Full Retirement Sum have to withdraw the excess monies from their Ordinary and Special Accounts in cash before they can use it to top up the MediSave Account of certain family members aged 55 and above.

The amendment will enable members to make such top ups directly from their Ordinary and Special Accounts to the MediSave Accounts of these family members.

In conclusion, the Bill provides greater flexibility, healthcare assurance, as well as simplifies certain administrative procedures for greater convenience for CPF members. Mdm Speaker, I beg to move.

[(proc text) Question proposed. (proc text)]

Mdm Speaker, I wholeheartedly welcome the changes to make the CPF system more friendly and flexible. It shows that our Government acts responsibly and responsively.

Firstly, fixing the Basic Healthcare Sum for each cohort is a great relief to Singaporeans. Many Singaporeans were worried that the Minimum Sum is a moving target and they will not be able to reach it when they retire. This change gives them some certainty. Offering different levels of savings on top of the sum also gives members flexibility and choice.

Second, members will now have the flexibility to make a lump-sum withdrawal of up to 20% of their Retirement Account after reaching their Payout Eligibility Age (PEA), 65 years old for most members. This is great news for members who need some extra cash to pursue their interest or dream upon retirement.

I share the Government's constant concern about making Retirement Account savings last. But I am equally concerned about members' immediate needs. Just to give one example. I have seen residents at my Meet-the-People Session, in particular, a resident who lives with her family members, her children's family, and are not happy with the situation and wanted to shift out and buy her own flat. She does not have cash but her money is in her CPF account. So, she says that ""我 只 可 以 看 , 不 可 以 动, 不 可 以 用 " and this is a situation where I feel that perhaps CPF can be more flexible.

There is another group of residents who wanted to downgrade, for example, from a 5-room flat to a 3-room flat when they are nearing 55 years old or after 55 years old, but they dare not make the move because they know that the moment they sell the flat, the money will go into CPF Retirement Accounts and that will lock their money up and they cannot buy a smaller flat. For situations like these, I hope CPF Board can be more flexible.

I am also glad that CPF payouts will start automatically when members reach age 70. Indeed, many CPF members were unaware that they previously had to apply for the payout and some were unaware when or how they should do it.

Actually, many elderly Singaporeans are oblivious to receiving their GST credits, even after the money had been deposited into their account. In spite of the letters of notification, some senior citizens are illiterate and do not have children to keep them informed.

In the spirit of enabling Singaporeans to make better use of their CPF, I hope CPF Board will make a greater effort to reach out to them. When we introduced MediShield Life, everyone could get free consultations at the Community Centres (CCs) with the help of volunteers from the Insurance and Financial Practitioners Association of Singapore (IFPAS). I would like to take this opportunity to thank them because many of my residents had gone to the CC to get their free consultation and they found it very useful.

CPF is going to change quite a bit, especially with the second round of recommendations that were released recently. When all the changes have been finalised, can we also provide such consultations? Mdm Speaker, in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] : The CPF amendments will give Singaporeans better peace of mind and more choices as well.

Better peace of mind is because BHS for each cohort will be fixed, so that people do not have to worry about a constantly rising Minimum Sum ‒ a "moving target". In addition, when members reach age 70, they can receive payouts automatically without making an application.

The amendments will also allow Singaporeans to make a lump-sum withdrawal of up to 20% of their Retirement Account upon reaching 65 years old. I understand that the Government has always been concerned about people's livelihood after retirement and has been looking at ways to make Retirement Account savings last longer. This shows that our Government acts responsibly. But I am equally concerned about members' immediate needs.

Some residents have told me that they lived with their children but there were some unpleasant things going on in the family and they wanted to move out and buy their own flat. However, most of their money is in the CPF; they do not have cash. This means that they can only "see" the money but are unable to use it. Under the circumstances, I feel that CPF Board should meet people's needs and be more flexible.

Other residents have also told me that they wanted to downgrade, for example, to change to a 3-room flat from a 5-room one. However, they worry that once they sell the flat, the money will be locked up in their CPF account because they are approaching 55 or even older. I think housing is very important. If people have money in their CPF account and they need it to buy a flat, CPF Board could perhaps exercise more flexibility in this area to help these residents.

Another suggestion is for CPF Board to make a better effort at explaining to Singaporeans how to use their CPF. When we introduced MediShield Life, everyone can get free consultation at the CCs. The response was good. The CPF scheme will undergo major changes. I hope that after all the changes have been finalised, we can provide similar consultations so that Singaporeans can better understand how to make good use of their CPF monies.

Mdm Speaker, CPF has to evolve to stay relevant with the times. Members are living longer, medical expenses are rising and housing commitments and inflation are factors that may impact our retirement plans in more ways than one.

The latest amendments to the CPF Act are another work in progress to ensure retirement adequacy for members in a changing world. I hope the CPF Review Panel will continue to make enhancements to the compulsory savings scheme to keep up with the times, the aspirations of our younger workers and the retirement needs of our ageing society.

Madam, I have one clarification to seek in this amendment Bill. The new section 18D of the CPF Act is a short addition to the legislation but it carries a significant implication. The new section 18D allows the transfer of a member's monies standing in his Ordinary Account or Special Account to the MediSave Account of a related person.

The CPF Act, in its current form, already allows members to use their MediSave Account to make payments for medical expenses incurred by other relevant individuals subject to terms and conditions imposed by CPF Board. That being the case, what is the main purpose of introducing section 18D of the Bill to allow the topping up of a member's MediSave Account using the Ordinary or Special Account of related members?

Is it to address a concern that the financial adequacy of MediSave Accounts would deteriorate over time, if the same accounts are repeatedly being used to pay for the medical expenses of related persons? Would members, who are unable to tap on their MediSave Account to help their loved ones for whatever reason, be asked to use their Ordinary or Special Account instead, via a transfer made permissible under the new section?

There is not much detail specified in the new section 18D of the Bill, but, as it stands, such a move will affect the retirement adequacy of members, now that their Ordinary and Special accounts can also be used to top up the MediSave Accounts of their loved ones. I seek clarifications on the new section 18D of the Bill.

Mdm Speaker, I support the Bill. But before I end my speech, I wish to ask the Minister to look into enhancing the lump-sum withdrawal option of Retirement Account savings at the PEA in subsequent reviews of the CPF Act.

The CPF Review Panel, in its report in early 2015, said it recognises that many members may have short-term cash flow needs in retirement, and came up with the flexibility to allow members to withdraw up to 20% of their Retirement Account savings, but only at PEA. The decision to delay such withdrawal till PEA was premised on a belief that members would be clearer at that point in time to understand the trade-off between a lump-sum withdrawal of one's retirement savings and lower monthly payouts.

The illustrative table provided in the same CPF Review Report shows that members who opt for a 20% lump-sum withdrawal at PEA will stand to receive $10 to $100 lesser in monthly payouts depending on the amount standing in their Retirement Accounts. For members with about $80,000 in their Retirement Accounts, it is just a toss between receiving $680 a month or $580 a month with a lump-sum withdrawal of about $20,000.

Madam, upon reaching age 55, members do not need another decade to think about this trade-off, especially when financial emergencies can come knocking at any time. And such lump-sum withdrawal by members may not relate to financial emergencies as well.

The CPF Review Panel has made the right recommendation to allow members the flexibility to withdraw up to 20% of their Retirement Account savings, but it has fallen short by restricting the option to exercise this flexibility only when members attain their PEA. There should be an option for members to exercise such withdrawal after age 55 and prior to reaching PEA.

Madam, at age 55, members will have their CPF savings locked up in their Retirement Accounts. For members who have set their minds on withdrawing 20% of their Retirement Account savings, what difference does it make to have them withdraw a portion of their CPF savings at age 60, 65, or whatever the PEA may be in the future? These members are already mentally prepared for a lower monthly retirement income to begin with, and the illustrative table provided by the CPF Review Report will give them a good gauge of the trade-off involved. What these members will stand to lose, however, is the compounded interest on the portion of the retirement savings they wish to take out before attaining PEA, and that may not amount to anything significant, depending on the amount withdrawn.

Life is unpredictable. We can be walking today and bedridden the next. So, using some of our own CPF savings to perform the Haj or fulfil our bucket list of visiting our ancestral village while we are still able to walk is certainly not a luxury but a treat well deserved and a reward well-earned after age 55.

The official Retirement Age does not equate actual retirement age. Likewise, the re-employment age does not guarantee employment. These uncertainties must be reflected in the option to allow members to make partial lump-sum withdrawal of their Retirement Account savings after age 55. Madam, I support the Bill.

Madam, in Mandarin.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Mdm Speaker, the CPF system is Singapore's important social security foundation. It has been successfully operating for more than 60 years. In order to ensure that this system keeps pace with changes, and continue to function effectively, I believe it is necessary to make amendments to the CPF Act. However, we need to take note of two fundamental principles in making amendments to the system.

Firstly, CPF is a retirement scheme which addresses housing, healthcare and children's education needs. Essentially, it safeguards the quality of the lifestyle of an individual and that of the household. From this perspective, CPF has to adopt a proper and stable management model that is not easily vulnerable to risks.

It is commonly said that "Investment always carries risks and one needs to proceed with caution." There is no business that only earns profits and suffers no losses. Even the most savvy investor may plunge into losses in a volatile and uncertain market. In July this year, Temasek Holdings announced that in the 2016 financial year, shareholder returns came in at a negative 9%, stirring up much public debate. But looking at the 10-year period, Temasek still performs very well overall. Investment is a specialised area of expertise. If even Temasek with its very professional team of researchers could also end up with losses, we cannot expect the small everyday investor to remain unscathed. Thus, it is critical for the investment of CPF monies to be handled with extreme caution, as this would have a great impact on retirement plans and social stability. From a business standpoint, we hope that our employees work very hard when they are young and that they could enjoy their twilight years after retirement. We do not wish to see our employees liberally use CPF funds to invest, and have this affect their mood and work should they suffer investment losses.

The second principle is that CPF is part of the worker's salary. Every worker needs to contribute CPF; the employer has to contribute CPF on behalf of his workers, too. Hence, whether you are a local employer or an overseas investor, CPF contributions should always be taken into account when computing business overheads.

I recall this saying: "The man without thought for the future will surely have trouble close at hand." Presently, Singapore is feeling the impact of a rapidly ageing population. If we introduce more flexibility into managing CPF funds and allow people to use their CPF funds for other investment purposes, they may even withdraw their CPF funds completely and spend them when they reach a certain age. If the elderly lose their means of financial protection which, in turn, affects social stability, this deviates from the original intention of setting up the CPF scheme.

We need money to sustain our livelihood as we age. However, due to inflation, some elderly people who have reached retirement age have insufficient funds in their CPF to maintain their basic living expenses. They have no choice but to continue working to avoid losing the source of income. This phenomenon should be brought to the attention of the public at large.

Of late, disputes on CPF have become very frequent. This is natural. Times have changed. Singaporeans have become more educated. Everyone is expressing concern about the CPF system and safeguards for the elderly. This is a good thing. CPF is very important to social harmony and stability, and, therefore, the tripartite partners need to review this earnestly. The Government needs to reflect on the reasons behind the public discontent and decide whether it needs to increase management transparency. Employers have to make timely contributions to CPF to ensure peace of mind for their employees to do their work. Employees should also not forget that CPF was set up to provide for their old age. Most of all, every good system needs to be time-tested. Having said this, I feel that amendments to the CPF Act should be handled with extreme prudence.

Mdm Speaker, I stand in support of the Bill.

CPF is a compulsory comprehensive savings plan for working Singaporeans primarily to fund retirement, healthcare and housing needs. It has been a pivotal and integral part of our lives' financial sustainability.

Continuous enhancements of the CPF Act only prove the point that we need to stay relevant to the needs and aspirations of Singaporeans with changing times and evolving lifestyles. Section 14, subsection 3A to 3D, and section 14, subsection 4A provide wide-ranging powers to the Board to recover cash grants or payments which were paid in error to the person's account.

I have the following concerns.

What are the safeguards to ensure that the recovery of payment or grant paid in error is also not erroneously done as no legal proceedings can be instituted on such recovery?

Will the individual or the next-of-kin be allowed an avenue to raise their objections and provide further evidence that it is not the case?

Madam, the new section 18D states that the Board may, on the application of a member and subject to such terms and conditions as the Board may impose, permit the member to transfer the whole or part of the amount standing to the credit of the member in either or both of the member's Ordinary Account and Special Account to the MediSave account of any person who is related to the member in a manner specified by the Board.

I have two questions in relation to this clause.

Who are the related persons that a member can transfer money from his/her Ordinary Account to? What are the bases/circumstances to allow a member to transfer the whole or part of the amount in this Ordinary Account? While making allowance for flexibility, how does MOM ensure that his/her retirement adequacy is not compromised?

Madam, section 67C seems to suggest that the Board may impose a financial penalty on medical institutions and approved insurers on wrong and unauthorised claims or when they do not comply with audits. The question is: how could we ensure that employees of such institutions and insurers are given the right understanding and training on the development of schemes, amidst the other schemes provided for the different classes of members? Even if the penalty is imposed on the institution, there must be safeguards to ensure that financial penalty should not be passed down to the employees who have committed the error.

Mdm Speaker, notwithstanding these concerns and questions, I still stand in support of the Bill.

Madam, the CPF system has been lauded around the world as an effective method for the Government to help manage the financial needs of citizens throughout their lifetime. The amendments to the CPF in this Bill will further strengthen the system and have far-reaching implications.

I stand in support of this Bill for the following reasons.

Firstly, the greater discretion accorded to CPF Board will lead to greater efficiency. The board will now be allowed to start payouts for members on the Retirement Sum Scheme, without requiring members to make an application.

I understand that we are doing this, as the Minister has mentioned, because some members on the Retirement Sum Scheme may not have made these applications despite receiving repeated reminder letters from CPF Board around two months before their PEA. Can I ask if the Board has found out the reasons as to why members did not make these applications? Was there an increasing number of members who did not make these applications over the past few years? While this amendment will solve this issue on the surface, I wonder if there are other underlying reasons which we need to look into and address as well.

Secondly, I support the implementation of BHS and the amendments to remove the requirement to top up the MediSave Account. Withdrawal of CPF is often a much-awaited event for many retiring Singaporeans who have laboured hard throughout their lives. But the current policy causes a strain on members when they are required to top up their MediSave Accounts before withdrawing from their Ordinary or Special Accounts. This amendment is a step forward to help increase their retirement funds.

Lastly, on the proposed new section 18D, I commend the greater flexibility granted to family members, allowing them to transfer funds from their Ordinary and/or Special Accounts to the MediSave Accounts of their family members. In this period of rising medical costs for our senior citizens, there will be occasions when the balance in their MediSave Accounts runs low and a top up is required. The flexibility and freedom granted by this amendment will lighten the anxiety of members in need.

However, can the Minister clarify what exactly are the "terms and conditions as the Board may impose", as specified in section 18D?

In addition, this amendment applies to "any person who is related to the member in a manner specified by the Board".

"Related Person" is defined in the Act as:

his spouse;

a child of the member, including an adopted child or a step-child;

a father or mother of the member;

a brother or sister of the member;

a grandchild of the member;

a grandparent of the member; or

any other person who, in the opinion of the Board, should be regarded as a related person for the purposes of this section.

When interacting with residents, I have encountered many cases of senior citizens being dependent on their sons- or daughters-in-law for their day-to-day needs and they are an integral part of the family. For some, they could even represent one of the closest members within the family.

Can the Minister clarify if sons- or daughters-in-law can be classified as a related person under "(g) any other person who in the opinion of the Board should be regarded as a related person for the purposes of this section"?

Madam, I believe including them will have the effect of knitting the family fabric even closer, bringing extended family members into circles of trust.

Madam, these comments notwithstanding, I believe that the proposed changes will strengthen the trust Singaporeans have in the CPF system. In this period of economic difficulties, Singaporeans will appreciate a more secure safety net for them and their families. Thus, I stand in support of this Bill.

Mdm Speaker, I support the Bill. I would also like to point out some areas of concern where I feel we should proceed much more cautiously into the future.

Earlier this year, when the House debated the CPF (Amendment) Bill, there had already been significant discussion of the benefits of the changes then, especially enhanced insurance coverage under the Home Protection Scheme and the greater flexibility afforded by the reduction in requirement for account holders to keep the Full Retirement Sum and, instead, they only need to keep to the lower Basic Retirement Sum. Although the issue of retirement adequacy had been broached at the time, today's Bill brings the issue into sharper focus because it proposes a scheme for lump-sum withdrawals.

I certainly have no objections to being allowed to make lump-sum withdrawals as an individual. But I would like to ask what this will mean, first, for retirement adequacy and, more importantly, for individuals who are looking to such withdrawals possibly as a chance to enjoy a windfall.

General interest surrounding lump-sum withdrawals has been linked to the issue of individual control over their accounts. This is an area where I believe more can be done to distinguish between the individual and the collective when it comes to taking responsibility for retirement adequacy.

The natural inclination of individual account holders is to want greater flexibility in withdrawal. The challenge, however, is how we deal with the infrequent but inevitable lapses of the very small minority. Unfortunately, when such lapses occur, for instance, in the form of excessive early withdrawals, it could defeat the effectiveness of CPF for retirement savings.

The practice of requiring employers to contribute to the retirement security of their employees is an accepted norm globally, but so is the challenge of ensuring that the monies given over to the control of the beneficiaries are responsibly set aside by the receiving employee. According to the Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index, the ranking of Singapore's CPF has weakened in recent years because of a decline in the rating for adequacy.

Whose responsibility is it to ensure retirement adequacy? The individual or the Government? Would allowing lump-sum withdrawals, however limited, from retirement accounts impact on such adequacy?

In recent years, the extra interest on the initial part of an account holder's combined balances, currently set at $60,000, as well as on the initial balances of those aged 55 and above, has significantly promoted better adequacy. But the financially weak remain vulnerable.

The challenge that whoever is responsible for retirement adequacy faces is that the concept itself is not as clearly defined any more, simply because retirement itself seems to be a shifting concept, with different types of workers looking at it differently.

While this Bill seeks to provide for account holders to make lump-sum withdrawals under strict conditions, I feel that it should be made clearer that it is not possible for CPF savings to be regarded as a personal bank account. Too much individual flexibility in handling CPF accounts will compromise its objective of providing blanket retirement adequacy.

We also recognise that CPF can only continue to excel in its core function if it is not loaded with multiple and, sometimes, possibly contradictory objectives.

The well-known trade-off between risks and returns is based on large sample averages. It should not be mistaken to imply that all individuals who take on higher risks will enjoy higher returns. In some cases, the risks will be converted into actual losses and, when these cases hit those who are financially weak, their retirement savings will suffer.

Lump-sum withdrawals are no doubt a popular feature, but is it a logical one and what is allowing lump-sum withdrawals meant to achieve? Will a lump-sum withdrawal be regarded as a windfall?

While such withdrawals will satisfy the individual, it is not necessarily true for the collective. Allowing CPF accounts to be treated as flexibly as personal bank accounts on one extreme will deplete the pool and reduce its capacity to achieve a good spread of risks. It will also directly compromise retirement adequacy and any move in that direction will, unfortunately and ultimately, weaken CPF as an institution in exchange for mere popularity.

Moving forward, I believe it would be more important to focus on de-popularising the notion that lump-sum withdrawals can be treated as a windfall, strengthening retirement adequacy, and enhance but also more narrowly target the support for those retirees who are most in need.

Even if we recognise that lump-sum withdrawals require astute management, those who request such a withdrawal will still face the challenge of matching the returns offered by CPF. This is not easy. Outperforming CPF returns is certainly not something individuals should lightly risk with their retirement funds.

Finally, I have two questions. First, I would like to clarify if the legislation allows for lump-sum withdrawals which have been incorrectly dispensed to be recovered. This is a potential new complication, especially since we are talking about limited withdrawals under certain eligibility conditions. Second, I would like to ask the Minister what the long-term vision of CPF Board is on managing individual and collective responsibility for retirement needs is. By allowing partial withdrawal of a lump sum, does today's Bill imply that the Government is aiming to promote a balance between the two?

Mdm Speaker, let me begin by first declaring that I was a member of the CPF Advisory Panel.

I applaud the efforts in this second amendment to automate CPF payouts. This will benefit those members who are not on the CPF LIFE scheme but are on the old Retirement Sum Scheme. This will also benefit those members who are illiterate and those who do not have children or someone to explain the process to them. With the amendments, it also means members in the Retirement Sum Scheme can defer the start of their payouts up to the age of 70, which would allow for a longer runway of payouts for their retirement.

Nonetheless, even with simplifications made to CPF, I have met some young people who themselves do not understand how CPF payouts work. I have met residents who came asking for financial help and bitter residents who bemoaned the Government taking their savings when their money was, in fact, sitting in their Retirement Account, waiting to be drawn on. I believe this new policy to simplify CPF payouts will be a welcome move.

On the topic of simplification, the current CPF scheme, though sound, comprehensive and intricate, can still be seen to be quite complicated. It is currently made up of three main accounts – Ordinary Account, Special Account, MediSave Account. Then, a fourth account, the Retirement Account, is created when the member is 55 years old. Each account has its own set of processes and benefits.

Because the entire scheme is not so simple and challenging to grasp by the layman, a quick search on the Internet reveals several Singaporean blogs and websites proffering help on understanding the whole scheme and advice on optimising the CPF scheme for financial benefit. Some of the advice is sound and others give incorrect information. Then there are some that exist to incite resentment towards the scheme. I believe most of us here are familiar with the "Return Our CPF" saga.

Reasonably, Singaporeans want more transparency about their hard-earned money, and the Government has done its best to make all the information available, even attempting to explain it through case studies, graphics and cartoons.

I am especially glad that CPF Board has started a series of roadshows and campaigns to help the people understand and start planning for retirement. I do hope the public will take advantage of these platforms. I also hope CPF Board could perhaps explore how it can be even more proactive on an ongoing basis in engaging the public so that the people are kept abreast of its good work and, hopefully, in a simplified way.

The amendments this time round also include the option for CPF members to make a lump-sum withdrawal from the Retirement Account. It offers greater flexibility in managing money and will be especially handy for those with necessary, large expenses in their old age. Madam, in Malay please.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] The amendments to the Act this time round also include the option for CPF members to make a lump-sum withdrawal from the Retirement Account. It offers greater flexibility in managing money and will be especially useful for those who need some large expenses in their old age. Those who do not have health problems can use the money for self-improvement and learn constructive skills and hobbies that they were not able to learn when they were younger.

I note CPF Board's efforts to use cartoons to explain the CPF system to the public. This is commendable but I believe that the issue of cost had constrained CPF Board from placing more media advertisements.

For instance, the amendments to the CPF Act in the last round allowed transfers between married couples. I am not sure if many Singaporeans are aware that this can be done. We should remind CPF members whose spouses are homemakers that they need to do their best to enhance or top up the amount in their spouse's accounts. This will enable their housewife spouses to become more secure and more comfortable during their retirement. It is a good form of savings for old age and can also help the family.

Nonetheless, having such a huge amount of money in hand means there will be many temptations. I would like to urge those who choose a lump-sum withdrawal to be careful with their finances. It is reasonable, of course, to want to pamper yourself with a little reward after working hard for so many years. But expenses meant for enjoyment and comfort, for instance, taking a luxury cruise, buying a new car or renovating your homes – these expenses will build up and the money withdrawn will be gone in a flash.

For those who plan to invest, be it in the stock market, property or others, please do your research carefully. Refrain from making high-risk investments if these involve savings that you cannot afford to lose. Even when buying bonds, one should be careful because we have seen recently how companies are increasingly facing difficulties in fulfilling their obligations and requested for refinancing of payments and others. Worse still, there are companies that failed or had to close shop altogether.

(In English): A point to note is the proliferation of scams from various channels. To date, several people, including elderly Singaporeans, have fallen prey to such scams and lost huge sums of money, often equating to life savings.

With the lump-sum withdrawal now an option, I am concerned that senior citizens will become an even more prominent target for scams after the age of 65. Family members must make efforts to ensure that their elderly relatives, parents and grandparents are aware of these scams. I hope the Government would do more to reach out to this group of people and generate more awareness.

Singaporeans who have plans for the money they have withdrawn should then be prepared to cash in on their homes, with schemes like the Lease Buyback scheme or Silver Housing Bonus to fall back on to supplement their income for the rest of their life.

I know a resident who lives in a 4-room flat. She is a single mother and now her children have grown up and moved out of the home. She is now the only occupant of the home. She has the option to downgrade to a smaller flat and cash out. Instead, she chose to continue living in her 4-room flat. As a result, she has to continue working full-time to support her choice. Some, like her, have made a conscious choice. But there are many others who may not be aware of the options and they keep on struggling when they should retire and enjoy some quality of life.

For many Singaporeans who do not have excess money or assets, your property and retirement account would be what you live on in your twilight years, so you would have to be financially savvy and manage your money with caution. Above all, remember that you do not need a specific type of property or a certain number of rooms in your house to be happy.

In the end, I do hope that CPF Board would have some financial counselling or collaterals to advise members on the implications of making lump-sum withdrawals and what it means for the members' future payouts and what are the other options they can undertake to supplement their retirement income for the rest of their life. Madam, I support the Bill.

Mdm Speaker, I rise in support of this Bill.

A key amendment today is to allow a lump-sum withdrawal of up to 20% from eligible members' Retirement Accounts when they reach 65. This option will be available to those born in 1958 or later. Those who prefer to defer their withdrawals have the additional options of transferring the amounts to the Ordinary Account or converting them into monthly payouts through CPF LIFE or the Retirement Sum Scheme.

Many Singaporeans welcome this new flexibility. It is always good to have options to withdraw more and get lower monthly payouts or withdraw less and get higher monthly payouts to cater to different retirement needs. I would like to commend the Advisory Panel for its painstaking efforts in reviewing our CPF system. It is not easy to ensure retirement funding sufficiency while introducing more elements of flexibility in the use of CPF funds.

As it is today, our CPF funds are being used for housing, healthcare, education and investments to a point where, for some members, they do not have enough to fund their retirement expenses, which was the original intent of CPF in the first place.

And, yet, we continue to receive requests to further liberalise the use of CPF funds. Some argue that the older generation, many of whom are less educated, may need more help from the Government to manage their funds. On the other hand, they assert, those in the younger generation are more highly educated and should be empowered to save up for their retirement. I disagree.

There is a difference between being more highly educated and financially literate. It takes knowledge, skills and personal discipline to accumulate funds for the distant future, especially when there are already many current needs and wants. As years of data have shown, most investors who had used their CPF to invest would have been better off leaving them in the Ordinary Account. It may be better to err on the side of caution when considering the use of CPF funds for investments by members. CPF should remain a low-risk asset for members.

Instead, we should get all members, particularly those from the lower income groups, to focus on building up their CPF accounts. They should be educated on the power of steady accumulation and compounding, as well as the difference between the interest rates offered by CPF and the banks.

Those seeking employment, including the self-employed, should not be tempted to receive more cash payments upfront in lieu of CPF contributions. They stand to lose out on Government top ups, if they do not have active CPF accounts and the attractive CPF interest rates. They should be constantly reminded to contribute to their CPF. Without funds in their CPF, it would be difficult for them to plan ahead for important milestones, such as buying a home, funding their children's education or be able to afford unexpected medical expenses, let alone fulfil their retirement needs.

At this point, I would like to commend MOM's public education efforts to increase awareness among workers of their rights. The recent TV advertisements to inform workers of their entitlements to CPF contributions do a great job in reaching out to workers in an interesting and easy to understand format. MOM's acronym is particularly suitable for this message – if your employer is not treating you right, just call the hotline and tell MOM!

Lastly, I would like to voice my support for the amendments to simplify the MediSave top up process for family members. Currently, there are tax-based incentive schemes to encourage family members to top up the CPF accounts of their loved ones. By allowing the transfer of monies in either or both of the member's Ordinary Accounts and Special Accounts to the MediSave Accounts of their family members who have lower balances, the recipients can benefit from the extra interest on lower balances and enjoy a higher effective interest rate overall. In the long term, they will be closer to having their own CPF LIFE plans. This amendment will benefit family members who are not working or are engaged in lower paying jobs for a variety of reasons – to look after the family, illness or disability. The ease of fund transfers will facilitate the strengthening of bonds among family members. I would like to conclude with my support for the Bill.

Minister Lim.

Mdm Speaker, I would like to thank the Members for supporting these amendments. I would try to respond to the various points raised according to the four areas of amendments.

Firstly, providing the flexibility of a 20% lump-sum withdrawal from the Payout Eligibility Age (PEA). When the CPF Advisory Panel deliberated on this particular recommendation, the views werre divided. There were some panel members who felt that we have to continue to tighten on any early withdrawal; while there were others who felt we should provide for flexibility. So, it is a balance between flexibility for early withdrawal versus preserving as much as possible for retirement needs.

At the end of the day, the Advisory Panel's recommendation is a well-balanced one. They recognised that some people may need to withdraw the money earlier but there should be a cap of 20%, including the amount withdrawn at the age of 55. And we should provide for this early withdrawal not at 55 but at the PEA because, by then, the person would, at the age of 65, for most, be in a better position to look ahead and make the assessment whether he needs more money now or to keep more for retirement years.

The comments earlier by the various Members reflect these divided views. For example, Mr Png Eng Huat asked, "Why not bring forward to 55?" So, he belongs to the group that goes for flexible provision. We also have Mr Thomas Chua who reminded the House that we should try to preserve as much as possible for retirement. Prof Randolph Tan highlighted the same. Mr Saktiandi Supaat likewise called for the public to be cautious. And last, but not least, we heard the same from Mr Chong Kee Hiong.

CPF Board and MOM are mindful of these divided views. On balance, we felt that the recommendation by the Advisory Panel was probably the most appropriate one and that is the reason why we are amending the Act to support that.

Secondly, automatic payout for the Retirement Sum Scheme. Broadly, all Members supported this move. Mr Saktiandi Supaat and Mr Louis Ng asked why some members did not activate their Retirement Sum payouts even at the age of 70 and beyond. CPF Board has been talking to various members and these are the main reasons we have gathered so far.

Some of them are still gainfully employed. So, they said, "Look, I still have an income, I don't need the money now." They keep it in the Retirement Account. Some of them have been receiving adequate support from their children. So, they said, "Look, at this moment, I am comfortable with the support. I don't need to draw on the money." Some of them do not know that they have to activate their payouts under the Retirement Sum Scheme (RSS). So, they said, "Oh, you mean I have to activate it?"

There is yet another group. Their concern is, "But what if I outlive my Retirement Account savings?" RSS, typically, provides for up to 20 years of payouts. Therefore, they said, "Look, I would like to keep it. I don't know how long I will live. It is better to defer the RSS payouts to as late as possible, just in case I outlive my Retirement Account savings."

These are the reasons put forward by the members. What we are proposing is, basically, to set the automatic start for the payout at the age of 70.

For members who, for whatever reason, feel that they still want to defer the start of their payouts, they can do so. They can come to CPF Board and we will make sure that they understand how the RSS works, we make sure that they understand the trade-offs between starting their RSS payouts versus deferring it further. On a case-by-case basis, we would allow for further deferment, provided that we are convinced that the member knows what the trade-offs are.

In the third area of changes affecting the Basic Healthcare Sum, Ms Thanaletchimi expressed her concern about whether the employees of these medical institutions know what they are doing, after all, there are so many schemes. Madam, I understand that MOH conducts training for the employees of these medical institutions before they accredit them to be authorised institutions to claim MediSave on behalf of CPF members.

Notwithstanding, from time to time, we do discover that they still make mistakes, and this is the reason why we have included this administrative penalty framework, hopefully, to remind them what they have to be more conscious about in filing the claims on behalf of members.

Lastly, various amendments about recovering over-payment, payment in error by the Government agencies, I want to explain that members will be served the notice in advance. CPF Board would not just recover the payment in error without notifying the CPF members. They would be notified in advance and,if the members have any queries or any objections, they can raise these to CPF Board and then CPF Board will consult the relevant agencies. Most of these payments made in error did not originate from CPF Board. We are, basically, collecting and making these payments on behalf of the various Government agencies.

Most of these payments go directly to the households in the form of cheques and into bank accounts. But for cheque payments, if they are not encashed and the cheques expire, then the money is now put into their CPF accounts. It is only under these circumstances, if later on, the agencies involved discover that they have made the payment in error, then they will notify CPF Board to recover the money. As far as CPF recovery is concerned, if the money is still in members' CPF accounts, we will help them to recover. But if the money is already spent, then it will be beyond the scope of CPF Board. This is to assure Members that there are enough safeguards in place.

On the issue of the direct transfer of funds from the Ordinary Account and Special Account to the MediSave Account, Mr Louis Ng and Ms Thanaletchimi asked about who these family members are and who will qualify for this direct transfer to MediSave Account. The family members would include not just spouses but also siblings, parents, grandparents, parents-in-law and grandparents-in-law. A Member asked whether a son-in-law, daughter-in-law can do the transfer. The answer is yes. If a son-in-law or daughter-in-law wants to top up the parents-in-law's accounts, they are encouraged to do so.

If you ask me whether a father-in-law can directly top up the MediSave Account for the son-in-law this way, the answer is no. We have a general policy for the transfer of CPF savings where we would like to encourage the younger generations to top up the CPF account for the older generations and not the other way round. But if the father-in-law loves his son-in-law so much that he decides to withdraw the money in his CPF account in cash and then give the money to the son-in-law and the son-in-law then puts it back into his MediSave Account, obviously, CPF Board cannot stop it.

This particular amendment is to make it easier for, hopefully, the younger generations to top up the MediSave Accounts of certain family members of the older generations.

Last, but not least, a few Members – Assoc Prof Randolph Tan, Er Dr Lee Bee Wah, Mr Saktiandi Supaat and others – expressed concern that the CPF system is getting too complicated and sometimes members are finding it difficult to decide at which point in time to do what. I fully accept that. In fact, that is the reason why CPF Board is now mounting another exercise to try and explain the CPF system in a simpler way, in a way that, hopefully, more members will be able to have a better appreciation.

I did a trial run with a few hundred grassroots leaders just about two weeks ago, putting it in a very simple way. Based on feedback, about 90% of them found the simplified ways of explanation useful. Quite a number of them feel that they are now more confident to help us explain the CPF system to members of the public. We are going to conduct a few more sessions in Tamil, Malay and Mandarin. After this series of four sessions, we are going to take stock based on the feedback and see how can we refine it further and, beyond that, I want to go back to all the Grassroots Advisers to help us send out the message. So, your point is well accepted.

At the same time, I also want to add that one of the key concerns that we have is about retirement planning. In this regard, I am happy to say that CPF Board had, in the second half of last year, piloted a retirement planning service. They invited CPF members, just before they turn 55, to come to CPF Board for a one-to-one, face-to-face consultation where CPF Board staff will try to explain to them what are the options, what are the decisions and so on. The feedback has been very positive. Thus, starting from October this year, starting this month, CPF Board will send information pamphlets to all members at age 54. CPF Board will also send invites to a target group on this retirement planning service before they turn 55, so that they are aware of this optional service available to them.

CPF Board is also exploring the possibility of doing a similar exercise to reach out to members on a one-on-one basis upon reaching the PEA. In other words, we will step up our efforts of engagement broadly in the community and, at the same time, individually, at the key milestone of age 55 and the PEA of individual members.

Mdm Speaker, I hope I have addressed most of the concerns raised by the Members. With that, I beg to move.

[(proc text) Question put, and agreed to. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House. (proc text)]

[(proc text) The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. – [Mr Lim Swee Say]. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Resolved, "That, at its rising today, Parliament do stand adjourned to a date to be fixed." – [Ms Grace Fu Hai Yien]. (proc text)]

Mdm Speaker, I beg to move, "That Parliament do now adjourn."

[(proc text) Question proposed. (proc text)]

Thank you, Mdm Speaker. Mdm Speaker, I raised this Motion so as to create a better understanding on the need to preserve our heritage, culture and history and, in particular, to urge the Government to consider the conservation of Dakota Crescent.

When I was young, I was a regular visitor to the National Library at Stamford Road. The National Library allowed me to read books and to find out more about the world without having to take a single step out of Singapore.

I recall spending hours at the old National Library reading fictional books, books about playing chess, stories about Greek mythology and so on.

When the National Library at Stamford Road was torn down in 2005 to make way for Fort Canning Tunnel, I was very disappointed. The National Library was a building which carries many fond memories not just for myself but for many other Singaporeans around my age group. I can still recall eating ice kacang from the stall full of bees flying around at the coffeeshop. Sadly, those memories of my time as a young boy at the Stamford Road National Library would now only remain as memories.

In 2011, LTA announced that Rochor Centre would be demolished to make way for the new North South Expressway. I had lived at Rochor Centre from 1977 to 1990. I shifted there when I was in Secondary 2 when it was a new block of flats and lived there until I married and moved out. I spent the better part of my growing up years in that estate. It was at Rochor Centre that I started volunteering as a grassroots leader because I wanted to improve the condition of the estate. It saddens me that the four multi-coloured blocks of flats which carry 40 years of memories for those residents would disappear soon.

Over the years, we have seen the demolition and loss of other prominent buildings like the National Theatre, the Van Kleef Aquarium and Queensway Cinema. Prominent places like New World, Gay World, Great World – they are all gone. The old Bugis Street, Chinatown and Sungei Road are also all gone and, in their places, we have commercial buildings and shopping complexes, many of which lack the original identity. Critics say that they all look similar to other buildings and shopping complexes which can be found all over Singapore.

I recognise that Singapore needs to progress and development has to take place. However, when Singaporeans experience loss of too many familiar buildings, familiar places of entertainment and environment, there will be this sense of loss of roots, a loss of emotional attachment to Singapore.

Museums should not be the only repositories of a nation's memories and history. Our children and the future generation should not be left to read about Singapore's heritage, culture and history only through history textbooks, photographs or some heritage trails.

Our future generation should have the opportunity to walk through and experience for themselves the same places which their parents had previously walked through, to allow them to experience and feel the presence of a particular environment of a local culture. Just to cite an example, I can show a person a picture book of the Botanic Gardens, or even take him on an interactive journey on the computer to explore the Botanic Gardens, but it is never the same as taking him to the Botanic Gardens for a walk in the park to admire the rainforest, the Ginger Garden, the majestic Tembusu tree or to watch the swans at the lake.

Mdm Speaker, we need to do more to encourage our citizens to develop a greater emotional connection to Singapore, to develop greater social cohesion and to better identify themselves as Singaporeans. One way to do so is to identify the collective memories of Singaporeans and to see how we can preserve the existing way of life and the local identity. Old buildings like the National Library, National Theatre, Van Kleef Aquarium; places like Sungei Road, Chinatown, Little India, Bugis Street; they all form part of the culture and heritage of Singapore. These are the buildings and places which existed during the days of nation building. They are all part of the Singapore history.

Many other countries are also taking steps to preserve their heritage and culture. Just look at the efforts by Japan, Hong Kong and the countries in Europe. If Singapore does not take urgent action to evaluate what to preserve and how to preserve our local heritage, culture and identity, these memories may be lost forever. Try as we may, we may never be able to re-create the same culture, the same setting. Just look at Chinatown and Bugis Street as examples of our attempts to re-create the environment and setting but which did not succeed. One of my concerns is that when a Singaporean leaves the country to work or study for a few years, when he returns, the place becomes unrecognisable because new buildings keep sprouting up and older buildings get demolished.

Prof Tommy Koh, in a recent speech at the World Cities Summit, said, "History and culture can play an important role in the rejuvenation of cities and in transforming ordinary cities into great cities." Prof Koh said that "the Singapore conservation movement came in time to realise the importance of conserving our built heritage and the anchors of our individual and collective memories".

This brings me to the question: how does the Government balance between developing our country for better progress as against preserving our heritage, culture and history? Can the Government help citizens to develop a greater sense of belonging to Singapore by preserving more of our history, more of our culture and more of our heritage buildings? How can we recall our past with nostalgia?

Hence, I wish to call on the Government to reconsider its plans for redeveloping Dakota Crescent which is within Mountbatten constituency. I raised this matter in 2015 in a Parliamentary Question.

And plans for the redevelopment of Dakota Crescent were made known sometime in 2014. After the announcement, HDB started to brief the residents about their relocation options and the plan to move the residents to a new block of rental flats. During this period, many residents came to share with me that they will miss the place after staying in Dakota Crescent for more than 50 years. They have so many stories to tell and so many memories attached to the place.

Even people whom I have not met before came up to me to share that they had lived in the estate when they were young. They can recall their days growing up in the Old Airport estate and Dakota area.

Sometime in 2015, several residents approached me to argue that there is sufficient merit for the Government to consider preserving Dakota Crescent. I met these residents and other interested parties to better understand their viewpoint. After hearing them out, I agreed with them.

Dakota Crescent was built in 1958 by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), the predecessor of HDB. There are 10 blocks of seven-storey flats, four blocks of three storey flats and one block of two storey flats. It is a tranquil place located next to the river. In fact, I would invite Members of the House to drop by there one day just to walk in the evening, very tranquil. To many Singaporeans who pass by Old Airport Road regularly, they call the flats the "seven-storey houses", or what they say in Hokkien, "qi lao chu". Dakota Crescent is one of the first public housing projects built during the SIT era to provide mass housing just before the role of mass building for the public was passed on to HDB. The fact that this estate is older than Singapore is a cause for celebration and should be an important consideration for conservation.

The estate was named after a Dakota plane crashed at Kallang Airport. In the midst of the estate sits a dove-shape marble playground which I was told is the only dove-shape playground left in Singapore. I was also told that in 1959, the Constitution Exposition was held at Kallang Airport to commemorate internal self-government in Singapore. It was a spectacular exhibition and a huge celebration at that time. Dakota Crescent was witness to this exhibition as it was situated just next to Kallang Airport.

The group of residents whom I talked to laboured for many months and they have prepared a Conservation Report to URA and the National Heritage Board. This report is a ground-up movement from interested residents who feel passionately that Dakota Crescent should be preserved. In the Conservation Report, they shared more about the architectural, historical and social significance of Dakota Crescent and the rationale for wanting to preserve this unique piece of estate. I have seen the report. Mdm Speaker, it is with me and it will be presented to NHB and URA. It is very interesting to learn more about the uniqueness of the design of the flats from an architectural point of view.

The Conservation Report shared about how Dakota can be used to become a space for educating the future generation about Singapore. There are suggestions as to how the estate can be re-developed for use by arts groups, social enterprises, or as rental flats for couples waiting for their BTO flats. So, this is not just a call by residents to conserve the place. They have even taken the effort to share more about how the Government can use the space even as we conserve it.

Many of these suggestions warrant serious consideration by the town planners. I hope that by speaking on this Motion, I can persuade the Government to re-think its redevelopment plans for Dakota Crescent.

I believe that this Government can do more to preserve our heritage, culture and history. And by preserving key portions of a unique neighbourhood like Dakota Crescent, the Government would encourage cultural and social networks to be involved and to thrive. This, Mdm Speaker, I submit, would make Singapore a better place for all our future generations.

Mdm Speaker, I support the Motion because I believe that as we continue to forge ahead in terms of national development, it is crucial that we have an acute appreciation for our cultural assets and incorporate them holistically in urban planning.

Let me illustrate this through the example of Toronto's Wychwood Barns.

In 1996, the Wychwood Barns, a complex of five tram sheds constructed in 1913 for the Toronto Civic Railway was slated for demolishment and the land where it sat on was to be sold.

While the Barns was an important transit facility from the 1920s to the 1940s, when trams were phased out, this unique red-brick complex was decommissioned, unattended to and soon degenerated into disrepair. Then, it was closed for many years.

However, fearful of what might be redeveloped on the site, local City Councillor Joe Mihevc and some of his residents around the area decided to act quickly. The Barn was opened for residents to visit and acquaint themselves with the space. Many were awed by the structure, its high ceiling and its enchanting red bricks. The community rallied together, requesting that a Heritage and Environmental Impact assessment be conducted. People gathered together over many sessions to discuss plans for the building and the land. The residents also engaged Artscape, a non-profit organisation that engaged in real estate and programme development for the arts and creative sector, to help develop ideas. The conversations and the consultations took many years and the final proposal was only ready in 2005.

I visited the Barn in 2014 and was awed by what it has become. The Wychwood Barns reopened in 2008 and has become the "social heart" of the community, hosting 26 artist live­work spaces, programming and administrative facilities for 10 non-profit organisations, 14 artists' studios, indoor and outdoor community gardens, a community-run gallery and an 8,000-square feet covered street used for farmers and art markets, conference and events.

There are many other such amazing creative place-making projects, like Project Row House in Houston, Pillsbury House in Minnesota.

I quoted these examples because they have so much resonance with what my fellow parliamentarian Mr Lim Biow Chuan has shared in his speech. I am supportive of his Motion and the effort to champion this important cause for two very important reasons.

One, redevelopment with cultural assets as a resource. I would like to reiterate that any argument for conservation is not, and I repeat, not an argument against development. What the conservationists are arguing for is development that takes heritage as our cultural asset into consideration such that heritage becomes a resource for development.

As we strive to become a more liveable, sustainable city state, such cultural assets should be a key component for redevelopment because they can serve to enhance its overall value. Conservation of precincts, such as Dakota Crescent, allows us to protect and promote our identity as a nation with rich and complex identities, histories and narratives – all of which are traits that not only make us interesting and exciting, but also show our resilience and the relevance of our historical development to our success today.

While demolishment may be the cheapest solution or the easiest one, we lose not just tangible assets like buildings but also intangible cultural assets, historical narratives and memories.

Some may say that history can be told through books and photographs. But I would counter that by arguing that these cannot replace the role and power of actual sites, resplete with their stories, lessons learnt and hopes for the future. Heritage is not about celebrating the past.

Hence, I urge the Government and urban planners to embrace cultural assets as a resource for development and, in considering adaptive uses for them, move from just urban planning towards cultural planning.

Secondly, the ground-up Initiative. Joe Mihevc, the Toronto City Councillor who led the ground-up effort to transform the Wychwood Barn, reflected, "If there is one key lesson to be learnt it is that positive things happen when Torontonians step up and take charge. The passion and dedication of hundreds of people created a critical web of support. Together, with each holding a piece of the puzzle and needing the cooperation of the others to make it happen, the Barns project was an unstoppable force."

Going back to the case of Dakota Crescent. When news that the SIT flats of Dakota Crescent would make way for future development, Singaporeans and residents of Dakota very quickly responded. People visited Dakota Crescent to take pictures of the quaint little estate, artists came to create engagement projects to document what was valuable about Dakota. Some, like Dakota Adventures, helped people to understand more about the area. Others, such as residents like Jonathan Poh, organised themselves and envisioned a different future for Dakota Crescent.

Clearly, for many Singaporeans, city-building is not merely about the physical or architectural side of projects. Rather, they saw and valued intangible assets of the precinct, personal relationships and organisation within the community, meaning-making of the space they lived in and were proud of it. In short, what we witnessed was a case of citizens who want to take ownership of their community and history. And their sense of ownership is what makes for successful development.

The proposal that Mr Lim had presented earlier is exactly what the Government has always been looking for – ground-up initiative with a bold vision. The proposal requires us to work with many different communities within and outside of Dakota, to redevelop the place into something inclusive, yet deeply respectful of the heritage and community of Dakota Crescent.

Furthermore, the proposal has the makings of a successful place-making project. One, it has leadership and ownership from the community. Two, it embraces collaboration, and is consultative. Three, it embraces diversity and openness. And four, it is creative.