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Western Australian
Singapore Business Council
Western Australian
Singapore Business Council
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Western
Australian Singapore Business Council 37th
Singapore National Day President’s
Speech
The honourable Mr. Francis Logan, MLA Parliamentary
Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Member for Cockburn (representing the
Premier the Honourable Geoff Gallop). Mr Dan Sullivan, MLA, Deputy leader of the Opposition
(representing the Honourable Mr Colin Barnett, MLA, Leader of the Opposition
Party) and Mrs Sullivan. Mr Thomas Goh President of Chung Wah Association and
Mrs Goh, Distinguish Guests, our generous sponsors for this evening’s
function. Members of the Western Australian Singapore Business
Council, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the WASBC management committee, I would
like to extend to all of you a very warm welcome to tonight’s 37th
birthday celebration of Independence for Singapore. As many of you know WASBC’S primary role is to help
link Singaporean’s and Australian’s to develop business opportunities and to
invest in each other’s country. WASBC could be the vehicle to channel them
from Singapore to Australia and vice verse. As I have said before, Singapore is Australia’s closest neighbour and Singapore is one of the best customers that Australia has for food as we have well over 3 million hungry people who believe that we live to eat and not eat to live. To the Singaporeans this is the best past time, to think of all the fantastic food and to be able to enjoy the pleasure of eating especially when it comes from Western Australia Singaporeans are also good investors and they bring
to this country their families for holidays and their children to further their
education in WA And while so doing they invest heavily as they have
faith in this country. This time last year our Singapore Government was
saying GLOOM, GLOOM, GLOOM but this year if I may quote the Prime Minister Mr.
Goh Chok Tong in his National Day message that, and I quote: Quote: “Investment commitments are healthy. EDB expects to
attract some 9 billion dollars worth of quality investments this year. MNC’s
invest in Singapore because of our strong fundamentals. They have confidence
that our Government and people will take hard decision for the good of the
economy. Our economy has done well so far. I n the second
quarter, it grew by 3.9% bringing growth in the first half to 1.2%. MTI has
raised this year’s GDP growth forecast to between 3 and 4 %. Because we had no
foreign debts and our banks were well managed, we have recovered faster. We made
10% growth in the year 2000. However, just a year ago, our economy went into
recession. The US economy had stalled and the global electronics industry
nosedived. The September 11th terrorist attacks further slowed down
the US economy. Then in December last year, we uncovered the Jemaah
Islamiyah terrorist group. Fortunately, we caught them before they could execute
their plan to set off truck bombs in Singapore. Indeed, these have been trying times. The world has
changed dramatically. America’s war is now against terrorism, not communism.
Russia, an old enemy of the US, is now a friend, a member of the G8, and soon
also of the WTO. China and most of Eastern Europe are already in the WTO. The
competition for investments and markets will be intense. We have to act now to meet the challenges of this New
World.” Unquote. With regard to the constant contradiction going on
between Malaysia and Singapore over the very important live giving commodity of
water. Singapore was always under the assumption that
Singapore will always have to depend on our neighbours for our water supply, but
with new technologies. Reverse osmosis - using membrane technology to get clean
water by desalination of sea water and reclamation of used water. We now have
NEWATER. Therefore with hard work and willingness to use
innovative technology, we have resolved this major issue of water supply which
has been a problem for Singapore since our independence. The lesson we can learn from this is never say die,
therefore we must remove the words from our vocabulary, cannot, impossible, unable, as if there is a will than there is a
way. I now leave you with this thought. I would like to thank all of you for coming tonight to join us in celebrating Singapore’s 37th National Day in WA. And a big thankyou to all our sponsors for their generous donations of prizes, for the door prize and the raffle draw prize, and last but not least Halina Young who is the MC for us tonight.
THANKYOU.
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