Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Dr Goh Keng Swee
Dr. Goh Keng Swee was the second Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 1973 and 1984 and a member of Parliament for the Kreta Ayer constituency for a quarter of a century.From 1945 onwards, he worked for the Department of Social Welfare, and eventually become its director.
In 1958, he resigned from the Civil Service to work full-time for the People's Action Party, becoming a key member and later vice-chairman of its Central Executive Commitee.
The following year, he successfully contested the Kreta Ayer seat in the 1959 general election for the Legislative Assembly and joined the first government of Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, as a Minister for Finance.
Upon Singapore's independence on 9 August 1965, he became the nation's first Minister for the Interior and Defence.
He then served as Finance Minister (1967 - 1970), Minister for Defence (1970-1979) and Minister for Education (1979-1984).
After his retirement from politics, he continued to be active in public life, serving as Deputy Chairman of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (1981-1994); Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Institute of East Asian Philosophies (1983–1992) and Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board of Governors of its successor, the Institute of East Asian Political Economy (1992–1995); Economic Adviser to the State Council of the People's Republic of China on coastal development and Adviser on tourism (1985); Deputy Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (1985–1992); Chairman of the Singapore Totalisator Board (1988–1994); adviser to the United Overseas Bank group (from 1993); Chairman of N.M Rothschild & Sons (Singapore) Ltd. (from 1994); and Vice-Chairman of Hong Leong Asia Ltd. (from 1995).
Contributions:
In the role of the Finance Minister, he assumed stewardship of Singapore's economy.
As a budget deficit of S$14 million was forecast that year, he introduced stringent fiscal discipline which including cutting civil service salaries.
As a result of these measures, he was able to announce at the end of the year when delivering the budget that the Government had achieved a surplus of $1 million.
He initiated the setting up of the Economic Development Board which was established in August 1961 to attract foreign multinational corporations to invest in Singapore.
The next year, he started the development of the Jurong industrial estate on the western end of the island which was then a swamp, offering incentives to local and foreign business to locate there.
8:36 AM By random
