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  Straits Times Forum 10 Mar 07
Look to productivity, not immigration, to boost growth
Letter from Richard Lim Siong Kheng

ACCORDING to Mr Ng Ya Ken ('6.5-million population - not if but when'; ST, March 7), Singapore's population would have to keep growing to maintain our economic growth.

Stretching his logic further, countries in South and South-east Asia with big populations and large overcrowded cities would have become much richer than tiny Switzerland, with an area of 41,285 sq km and a population of 7.4 million.

According to UN figures, in 2003 Switzerland ranked fourth in the world with a gross national income per capita (purchasing power parity basis) of $32,220, after Luxembourg, Norway and the US.

How did a small country with a small population achieve such high standards of income and living? Growing our gross national income per capita and therefore standard of living is not such a simple matter as just throwing bigger and bigger numbers into the equation.

Much has been said about the pros of having a large population but the downside risks have mainly been glossed over.

For example, can we sustain a large population without a large agricultural sector? What would happen if a severe global economic downturn, which happens regularly throughout history, was to take place and a quarter of the adult working population lose their jobs?

Big cities like Tokyo, Bangkok, Mumbai, Dhaka, Karachi and Jakarta mentioned by Mr Ng all have large agricultural sectors to depend on in case of a severe recession. Bangkok would have enough rice to go around. In the case of Hong Kong, it could count on China to provide it with food. In the case of Singapore, we do not have an agricultural sector to speak of.

And what about overcrowding? The long-term negative effects of overcrowding and intensive farming have been well documented. For example, the emergence of the virulent H5N1 strain has been attributed to large-scale intensive farming of chickens, resulting in stress and compromised immune systems.

There ought to be smarter ways to grow our economic pie, for example, through increasing productivity. More can be produced with less through education and knowledge. In the global world, it is ideas and knowledge that determine our standard of living.

In other words, emphasise quality rather than size in the Little Red Dot. Let us do things the smarter way and leave something for posterity.
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