Transcript of Speech by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam at the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI) Lunar New Year Celebration 2024

Minister Gan Kim Yong

Minister Chan Chun Sing

Minister Josephine Teo

Senior Ministers of State

Ministers of State

Members of Parliament

Mr Kho Choon Keng, President of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SCCCI),

Your predecessors the Honorary Presidents, Honorary Council Members and Council Members, and all who have contributed to SCCCI

Mr Lee Yi Shyan, Chairman of Business China and your fellow Board Members

The many Ambassadors who are with us here today and business leaders

Ladies and Gentlemen

[Greetings in Chinese] My wife and I are very happy to join you today for this jointly organised celebration, and to usher in the Year of the Dragon.

It is a long tradition at the SCCCI, going back 100 years, meeting at this time on the first day of Chinese New Year to celebrate the New Year and look forward to the future.

And indeed, as President Kho Choon Keng as just spoken about, we have to look to the future as one of opportunities, to be seized with determination and resilience.

We have here a standing audience and I do not wish to give a long speech. So let me make three points.

First, I want to commend both SCCCI and Business China for the good work you're doing, particularly in helping our businesses to navigate the changing regulatory climate and opportunities in the world around us.

SCCCI has been doing very good work locally, through your SME Centres as well as working with the trade associations (TACs) to help guide businesses, provide them with advisory services, and especially in recent times to help them on data security and sustainability.

The roles of both the SCCCI and Business China will only grow. Our businesses face the challenges of digitalisation, as well as cybersecurity which comes together with that. And the major challenge of moving towards sustainable business operations.

We also face the challenge of navigating an increasingly uncertain world, which I'll come to in a moment. And in that regard, you have been playing a growing role in helping our businesses navigate external markets, set up shop and grow. And international growth will in fact be the main source of growth for many of our businesses, and a source of prosperity for Singapore.

Which brings me to my second point. We have to learn to live with a profoundly uncertain world. Wherever we look – at the United States, China and globally - we face multiple uncertainties at the same time, and a combination of uncertainties globally that is unprecedented.

We have to learn to live with this. It is unlikely that these uncertainties will be resolved or eliminated soon. But uncertainty does not mean a lack of opportunity. We have to look for opportunities. We have to spread our eggs and avoid concentrated bets. And most importantly, we have to deepen our own skills and strengthen the Singapore brand, wherever we go.

The basic orientation we need as we live with uncertainty, is to avoid either excessive pessimism or overly optimistic views, on any market or new technology. Avoid veering from one extreme to the other. Avoid looking at the world in black-and-white terms.

This is true especially in Asia. Asia has always been viewed with bold narratives - either overly bullish or overly pessimistic. And each of the major economies in Asia is too often viewed in black-and-white terms. There's usually a kernel of truth in these narratives – whether pessimistic or optimistic - which is then embellished and amplified by commentators, and even in the markets.

That is true for China today. In fact, we now see a barrage of pessimistic assessments - virtually every day, if you look at major newspapers around the world, there will be some negative assessment of China’s prospects. And even questions around whether China is still investable.

That China has challenges is indisputable. It has challenges in its property market, challenges with excessive debts accumulated by its local governments, challenges with weak consumer sentiment and challenges with an undeveloped pension and social security system. Those challenges are indisputable. they are being addressed by the government in China, but they will take some time to overcome.

What is also indisputable is that China has fundamental strengths, which are in several areas now growing and being fortified. It has a deep manufacturing ecosystem - no longer reliant on cheap labor - in many areas. Not just EVs, which we read a lot about, but the entire automobile sector, industrial robots, and several other areas - a deep and formidable manufacturing ecosystem. Which together with an infrastructure and logistics system that is now one of the most advanced in the world creates a very competitive export economy.

And China also has a huge talent pool. Its overall labor force is no longer growing but its talent pool is growing - engineers, scientists and an increasingly skilled workforce, which give China a formidable advantage.

Hence bold narratives that focus either on China's vulnerabilities, or on China's strengths, are missing the whole picture. We have to recognise that the challenges and strengths can both be true at the same time, and indeed, will very likely be true for some time to come.

We have to avoid black-and-white views, and instead seek opportunities, in China, in India, in Southeast Asia, and globally, including in the United States and Europe - seek opportunities in a more uncertain and unpredictable climate.

If you look at the big picture, we are lucky to be in Asia. We are a small nation with no lack of opportunities around us. If we look at China alone, by the IMF’s assessments and reasonably conservative assessments, China will account for about 1/5 of total global growth over the next five years. And if you add India and Southeast Asia, the region we are in will account for well over 1/3 of global growth. So it's a region that's growing. Unpredictable, with many risks, but it is a region full of opportunity.

We have to take those opportunities while avoiding large concentrations of bets, and spreading our eggs. Look for opportunities in specific areas of growing demand, specific technologies, areas with upside, but avoid concentrating our bets.

And importantly, when we look at countries like China and India, which are effectively continental scale economies, we have to also look at local opportunities at the provincial or state level – the Chinese provinces and Indian states. These are themselves economies that are often larger than many industrial economies. They are hungry, in some ways even more capitalistic, and looking for many ways in which they can grow and thrive.  

My third and final message is to commend the SCCCI for its good work in building optimism and resilience in our society – not just your good work with businesses but your work to build social cohesion.

SCCCI and its partners amongst the other major business chambers just last year raised $10 million, within one month, to support scholarships, bursaries and leadership development opportunities through the Lee Kuan Yew Centennial Fund. You have been continually supporting students, and working together with Mendaki and SINDA, to ensure that we have an inclusive approach to developing talent and skills in the next generation of Singaporeans.

You are well placed to help, within the Forward Singapore mission, refresh our social compact and develop a more inclusive society. Build an inclusive workforce, including a workforce that embraces seniors, and develop skills in every worker. Deepen interactions between Singaporeans of different backgrounds. Deepen the integration of our new citizens. So that as we go forward, we stand united, we stay resilient amongst uncertainties, and we can look forward to a future of hope.

I hope the year of the dragon brings bountiful rewards for our business and most importantly for our people. [Closing wishes in Chinese.]