Looks like we may not recover for we no longer have the guidance
from a ft mentor:
From: ConfuseState 27-Sep 11:37
To: ALL
56295.1
Albert Winsemius, 'founding father' of Singapore
http://www.iias.nl/iiasn/iiasn9/soueasia/winsemiu.html
Thirty-five years ago, in the spring of 1960, Dr Albert
Winsemius
arrived in Singapore - soon to become his second fatherland --
for
the first time in his life. He headed an international team
of
experts in the field of development economics. A year earlier
the
former British colony had become independent, and the government
of
the young nation had asked the United Nations to invite Dr
Winsemius,
the founding father of the Dutch post-war industrialization
programme, to help them to find out which chances the future
would
offer to Singapore.
By Kees Tamboer
Dr Winsemius' first impression was anything but hopeful. "It
was
bewildering," he remembers. "There were strikes about nothing.
There
were communist-inspired riots almost every day and everywhere. In
the
beginning one has to very careful about passing any judgement -
one
does not know the country, one does not know the people, one does
not
know the men and women who are trying to steer this rudderless
ship.
But after a couple of months the pessimism within our
commission
reached appalling heights. We saw how a country can be demolished
by
unreal antitheses. The general opinion was: Singapore is going
down
the drain, it is a poor little market in a dark corner of
Asia."
Within a year, on 13 June 1961, the Winsemius team offered
Singapore
a development plan. The final assessment was written by
Winsemius
personally: 'Expectations and Reality' was his motto. This
was
permeated with an emotional appeal for unity, a passionate
warning
that time was running out if Singapore was not to sink away into
the
mud. The gloom was not completely unrelieved, there was one
bright
spot on the horizon: "In our opinion", wrote Winsemius,
"Singapore
has the basic assets for industrialization. Her greatest asset is
the
high aptitude of her people to work in manufacturing industries.
They
can be ranked among the best factory workers in the world."
Shirts and Pyjamas
After delivering his development plan in the summer of 1961,
Winsemius became the chief economic adviser to the
Singaporean
government. He held this function for almost twenty- five years,
and
at no time was there ever any written contract. The collaboration
was
based on mutual trust. Twice a year Winsemius flew to Singapore
to
spend about a fortnight there - one time it was to help drafting
the
plans for the coming year, the other time for checking and
steering.
Part of the deal was that he would come immediately should
the
government let him know that his help was needed at short
notice,
which was, for instance, the case in 1965.
"When we started with the implementation of the first
development
programme, Winsemius recalls, "I was convinced that a policy
of
protection of the home market would come to nothing, because
there
was almost no home market. I immediately advised them to try and
form
an economic federation with Malaya. As soon as this aim was
achieved,
I assumed, we would be able to move over to the next phase and try
to
conquer a position on the world market. Four years later
Singapore
was expelled from the Federation, and there were the signs of
some
initial panic in the state. In my opinion there was no longer
any
reason for such a reaction. On the contrary, this is the best day
of
my life, I told my friends in Singapore, for in those first years
of
development Singapore had proved that it was able to overcome
internal antithesis and to work together to build up a
manufacturing
industry that would certainly be competitive in the long
run."
Albert Winsemius distinguishes five main phases in the
economic
development of Singapore.
"The first step", he explains, "was to set up low-value
industries,
such as the production of shirts and pyjamas in factories in
which
women could work. The contribution made by the women during
the
initial years of industrialization has never really been
properly
studied. This contribution can easily be underestimated. It was
the
only manufacturing activity then with sufficient experience.
The
sewing machines could be rented, and the girls and women had
experience in working with them. Therefore a very quick start
was
possible in the field of shirts and underwear. This aspect of
early
industrial development deserves more attention than it has
received
so far."
Upgrading
The Separation in 1965 marked the beginning of the second phase.
The
Housing and Development Board (HDB) started with an enormous
building
programme, under the leadership of Mr. Howe Yoon Chong. "This
was
very inspiring, people could see what was being achieved. On
Sundays
fathers and mothers showed their children in what kind of new
dwellings they would live presently. In that same period we
succeeded
in interesting, just as had happened in Holland fifteen years
earlier, big oil companies like Shell and Esso in
establishing
refineries in Singapore.
The third phase was that we started as soon as possible with
the
upgrading. Singapore became very active in promoting education
for
technical jobs, especially for the electronics industry. In
the
beginning it was quite a difficult job for me to convince people
at
the top of the big Dutch electronics company Philips to set
up
production plants in Singapore. I went to Eindhoven, where
the
headquarters of Philips are situated, to warn them: you have
to
hurry, I told them, otherwise there is a very real danger you will
be
too late and then you will be sure to miss the boat in the
growing
market of Southeast Asia. The result is that Philips is now one
of
the big investors in Singapore and is doing a very fine job
there.
The fourth phase was to make of Singapore an international
financial
centre. Formerly the young state was bound to the English
pound
sterling. I knew a Dutchman who had lived and worked in Singapore;
he
was an employee of the Bank of America in London at that time.
I
visited him and told him we wished to transform Singapore into
a
financial centre for Southeast Asia within ten years. He told me
it
could be done in three or four years. He took a globe and showed me
a
gap in the financial market of the world. Trading, he
explained,
starts at nine o'clock in the morning in Zurich in Switzerland.
An
hour later London opens. When London closes, New York is
already
open. After closing time on Wall Street, San Francisco on the
American west coast is still active. But as soon as San
Francisco
closes, there is a gap of a couple of hours. This gap can be
filled
by Singapore, should the government not shun taking some
drastic
measures - such as cutting its links with the British pound.
Container harbour
And the fifth and last phase was that we transformed Singapore into
a
centre of international traffic and transport. My advice was:
build
an airport where the biggest aeroplanes can land and let
everyone
know that they are welcome to land there. In other words, do not
use
landing-rights to protect your own Singapore Airlines. They
followed
this advice and it became a success. And thanks to this
initiative
Singapore has become a tourist centre too, especially for
short
stays. In the same vein, we started to construct a big
container
harbour. In Holland I had been chairman of a committee to advise
the
Dutch government on the problems to do with shipbuilding, so I
had
some knowledge about what was going on in that world. I saw
the
enormous growth of container transport between the United States
and
Europe, concentrated initially in the harbour of Rotterdam. So
I
advised the construction of a big container terminal in the
harbour
of Singapore, taking the risk of overcapacity and unoccupancy
during
the first years for granted. The advantage was evident:
Singapore
would be the only harbour in the region with container
facilities.
Nevertheless it was a hard job to convince the harbour
authorities.
Only after a small conversation with the minister the decision
could
no longer be postponed. Nowadays Singapore, after Rotterdam, has
the
second largest container harbour in the world. That surely is
something of which to be proud."
"In my opinion", says Dr. Winsemius, "it would be next to
impossible
to transplant the Singapore wonder elsewhere. I have experienced
it
in other countries. I have given advices to the government of
Greece
and, for five years, to the government of Portugal. It is
senseless
to launch an economic development programme in a country which
lacks
political stability and does not have a government that sticks
to
that programme in the knowledge that, one day, it will be
recognized
and rewarded by the voters."
Kees Tamboer is the economic editor of the Dutch daily Het
Parool
