Can Modi be Lee Kuan of India?

May 4, 2020

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Y.S. RANA

World needs a leader like Lee Kuan of Singapore who dragged Singapore and its people out from poverty to prosperity. Prime Minister Narendra Modi can be Lee Kuan of India as he has vision as well as action that transform dejection and despondency among the people into determination and hope. Indian leadership will have Herculean task of bringing economy back on track. It will be an opportunity and India should cash on it. So India needs to learn from Singapore.

In merely a gap of one generation, Singapore has become the poster child for countries that has elevated itself from the ranks o the underdeveloped world to the upper crust of developed economies. By keeping its focus on three key areas—health, wealth and education– now is consolidating its leadership status in the economic growth playoffs across the world. Its stellar performance on these metrics is one of the reasons that businesses and entrepreneurs around the world are looking to incorporate in Singapore and participate in the country’s growth.

At a time when financial turmoil and recessions have engulfed nearly all of the world’s major economies, Singapore economy continues to grow while keeping its unemployment and inflation rates at very low levels. As a result of this growth, the wealth of the country and its citizens continues to rise dramatically.

In matter of per capita reserves, Singapore leads in all nations if data is of any indication. According to data, it holds around US $39.994 million in reserves per capita, a figure higher than that for every other country. In the report “Wealth Report” compiled by Citibank and Knight Frank ranks Singapore as the world’s wealthiest country in terms of GDP spending per capita and it is on the track to keep that status up to 2050. A report from the Boston Consulting Group showed that Singapore had 1,88,000 millionaire households in 2011 making it the country with the highest per capita ratio of millionaires in the world.

Besides, Singapore was recently named by a Bloomberg report as the “world’s healthiest country.” Citing factors such as average life expectancy, mortality rates, cigarette smoking rates etc the survey ranked all countries with populations of at least one million, Singapore received the top rank out of a total of 145 countries with a ‘health grade’ of 89.45 percent.

Singapore’s retirement system is also a model for the rest of the world. In retirement, Singaporeans can enjoy a wide range of public and private healthcare options and have financial security due to government initiatives such as the Central Provident Fund (CPF).This retirement system automatically sets aside a percentage of an individual’s earnings, which the government invests prudently.

Singapore excels in education, as evidenced by the high ranking of its students on various international assessments such as the PISA. There is growing demand worldwide from individuals wanting to study in its various universities, colleges, and other institutions. There are currently more than one lakh foreign students in Singapore. Global firm Quacquarelli Symonds ranks Singapore as the top Asian city for education and National University of Singapore (NUS) as the second best university in Asia.

It has developed business-friendly environment attracts many entrepreneurs, is a global financial hub constantly ranked as one of the easiest places to do business in the world.

Singapore also features attractive tax rates or both companies and individuals.