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SATURDAY, MAY 19, 2OI2

Leaders

in wealth
creation
Ngiam Tong Dow on thinking outside the box, Singapore's education system and which path

we should embark on, plus the ramifications

DURING my undergraduate Years, to get away from dull prescribed texts, I read a comic strip Lil Abner by the inimitable cartoonist Al
a glass of water filled up half-

Capp. He caricatured the lives of American hillbillies - the earthy, shrewd and funny folks who inhabit the Appalachian mountains.

&*nena& 6e.:$X-moose

I RECALL a character called General Bull-moose, who has a bull

horn voice. Bull-moose was a cari-

of General Motors, the great American corporation some say of all time. The story goes that one morning he got up from bed feeling his age. He thought it was time for
cature
chores that he wished to delegate.

way can be either half-full or half-empty, depending on how you interpret the data gathered from due diligence. The lawyer is a descendant from the Greek SoPhist School of Philosophy. For a fee, he can argue that black is white or white is black. The word sophisticated is derived from the root word sophist. Those who do not believe me should read QC opinions for oPposing parties in court cases. Reading the same facts, counsel
from both sides have the remarkable ability to convince the third-

nality of thought. If that were the case, ; how do we differentiate a First from an Upper Two
degree award? I had suggested to NUS that

him to have an aide-de-camp (ADC) to assist him in doing the

The HR department sbnt him three candidates to choose from'
The first young man was an engi-

party reader that both are right' Which of the three young men do you think the general selected to be his ADC? T*r*lik8rlg **ttside

external examiners be asked to set two out of 10 questions outside the curriculum. This is to test whether our graduates are able to think outside the box. I am told that at the California lnstitute of Technology (Caltech), Asian students normally top the first-year classes. But when it comes to the second and subse-

tke

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neer. When asked what I and I added up to, he promptly said 2. The second young man who aPpeared before the general was an
accountant. When asked the same question, he said: "Sir l, l, looks Iike 11 to me." The third young man stepped up and was at a loss for an answer. Instead he asked the.general: "Sir, what answer do you want?" This young man was an economist! An economist is a distant cousin of the lawyer. To an economist,

I BELIEVE that Singaporeans and Asians in general think within the box because of our didactic sYstem of education. We are taught to respect our parents and our
teachers, never to question them.

In |ewish culture, the child is encouraged to ask questions of his

teacher. I understand that the role of ex-

quent years, when students are tested on application of knowIedge, their American classmates begin to overtake them.

ternal examiners at the National University of Singapore (NUS) is to validate that our students are up to the standards expected from questions set within the curriculum. They do not assess for origi-

Wealth creators versus wse*th memegsr$ AS A permanent secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, I was privileged to know some of

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piece of contrarian thinking outside the box. Paradoxically, with an exa

that the lack of natural gas was not an impediment. The Plant
could crack naphtha, a bYProduct of petroleum, refining into ethYlene gas to serve as feedstock for the downstream plants producing plastics and other final products'

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pected 18 million visitor arrivals today, we need to of-

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fer more budget rather than

tels.

five-star ho-

For a capital-intensive Project with a long gestation period, political stability and good governance are more crucial for success than
availability of natural gas. Sumitomo's lapanese comPetitor Mitsui, building its petrochemical proiect at about the same time in Iran, abandoned its project when the Iran-Iraq war broke out. This gave Petrochemical CorPoration of Singapore the oPPortunitY to

pull ahead.

to read in The Straits

Times that he had an order from a PRC company to build two oil rigs. Knowing that his yard

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the contribution of Dr Goh Keng Swee to wealth creation. As Defence Minister, he established Sheng-Li Holdings (now known

had never built oil rigs before, I rang him to ask how he was going to execute his order. He was

as Singapore Technologies) to build up our defence indr-rstries.

neering used.the process of reverse engineering to refurbish fighter aircraft and later br-rild battle tanks and other equiPment to a
stage where we can comPete with international defence comPanies

Under his leadershiP, ST Engi-

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first and then figure out how to execute it. Robin Shipyard built the two rigs successfully, hiring an Amerihe gets the order

ritated by my scepticism, telling me that as a businessman

in global markets.

can naval architect to

One day

design

them. The shipyard subsequentlY moved its operations to China.

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MORE valuable than cost savings

I asked Mr Teo Soo

from producing our own arms is

the knowledge accumuiated bY doing things ourselves.
Since Dr Goh retired from Gov-

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Chuan, a leading rice merchant, what the ideal political climate for doing business was. He said the politicai temperature shouid be
lukewarm, neither too hot nor too cold. He explained that if Indonesia was too hot, SingaPore would be scalded by the ensuing chaos. If it was too cold (efficient), there would be no place for us' I was appointed EDB chairman in early 1975. My first Public dutY
was

&

ernment in 1986, there has been no one to replace him as our

wealth creator. GIC and Temasek are sovereign wealth managers for our national savings and reserves, They are not wealth cteators. So I conclude with the question: Should Singapore aim to be Jurong Island or Shenton WaY? The direction we set will have a deep impact on our political, economic, educational and labour policies.

our top business tYcoons. The singular strength of these wealth creators is their abiiity to think outside the box. TheY spot opportunities where others
only see obstacles.
Let me illustrate with some examples. Mr Robert Kuok and his fellow Carpenter Street rice and sugar merchants saw me at Fullerton Building around 1963 with a
proposal to develop a five-star luxury hotel on Orange Grove Road.

the signing of a joint

to organise the ceremonY for

venture

agreement between Sumitomo

Chemicals of |apan and the Singapore Finance Ministry to establish

What these policies are will

a 500,000-ton

Petrochemical

cracker on Pulau Ayer Merbau.

have to be thought through bY the Ministry of Finance and the Minis-

Without natural gas, SingaPore was an unlikely place to locate a petrochemical plant. There was no lack of sceptics and naysaYers,

try of Trade and

il service
1.'. -'

Though our visitor numbers

IndustrY, two ministries which I had served for the greater part of my 4O-year civcareer.

then were only around 400,000, he told me that those who could travel would be those who would

including The Straits Times,

pay for luxury accommodation. He would therefore build a luxury, not

a budget, hotel.

which ran a series of articles pouring cold water on EDB's dream of a heavy industry. Our partner Sumitomo told us

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