In his response to media queries over the current recession, Minister of State Chan Chun Sing said that Singaporeans should “put economic figures in perspective”. The former army general echoed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s media response last week and said that the current economic slowdown is not the same of the financial crisis in 2008.
“There was a general slowdown across all sectors, but in today’s environment you see some sectors not doing as well, but you see other sectors doing better.”
Minister Chan Chun Sing said that unlike the recession in 2008, only some sectors like the oil and shipping are not doing well, while the rest like education, healthcare and e-commence are “doing better”.
The Minister then made an empty promise claiming that the government will help when necessary without giving specifics:
“It is still early days, we are watching the numbers very closely. We’ve done some things in a very specific and targeted way. For example, we have rolled out industry transformation plans, we have gone in to help groups of workers affected by the current economic slowdown or structural changes. If we need to do more, we will do more in the coming months, but we are watching this very closely.”
Minister Chan Chun Sing then went on to a baseless claim about Singapore getting its “long-term fundamentals” right. To this, the Minister who have zero working experience in the private sector said that Singapore has three “basic fundamentals”: one to continue keeping Singapore conducive for business, two to grow local companies into multi-national companies and three to ensure workers who lost their job find another one as soon as possible.