Peter Ho:
Although small, Singapore can shape its future
SINGAPORE - Singapore may be small but with new technology, it
can shape a future that transcends its physical size and enlarges
its identity, the former head of the civil service, Mr Peter Ho,
said on Thursday (May 17).
Citing three countries that have re-invented themselves in the
digital age, he urged Singaporeans to balance their prevailing
attitude that Singapore is a price-taker with a more hopeful
view.
He made the call in his last lecture as the Institute of Policy
Studies' S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore, a series of
lectures that explores Singapore's future.
For instance, Estonia, with 1.3 million people, introduced
e-residency.
It now has 18,000 such residents who are not citizens of
Estonia. But they can set up companies based in the Baltic
nation.
This scheme helps Estonia generate business for its companies, from
independent contractors to small companies with clients
worldwide.
Denmark, with 5.7 million people, is mulling the creation of a
"Silicon Valley Ambassador" to better engage digital companies such
as Apple, Google and Facebook.
"This is almost as if technology was its own country, unlike the
present," said Mr Ho.
"For Singapore, such an approach would build on our earlier efforts
to partner other cities and sub-national regions to plug them into
international production networks," he added.
The third country is Luxembourg, with fewer than 600,000
people.
It is, however, creating a market by letting companies own
resources obtained from space.
These are ideas Singapore can consider, Mr Ho told officials and
students at the National University of Singapore.
The country does not have to be at the mercy of forces which it
thinks are beyond its control. "Because we are a small country, we
often speak as if the future were a car speeding toward us - we can
swerve, or we can run backward. We can scarcely control the
car."
But "even small city-states can influence, shape, and even create,
not just markets, but also their operating environment," he
added.
Mr Ho gave two reasons for his optimism.
First, Singapore can experiment with policies and roll them out
more easily because it is small.
It can also correct its course quickly if a policy was wrong or
misguided.
Second, Singapore has experience in responding to complexity and
uncertainty and can draw on it.
As a newly-independent nation, it eschewed import substitution,
courted multinational corporations and chose multicultural
meritocracy when its neighbours were going for the opposite.
But Singapore has to have the courage to seize this hope and
reinvent itself, added Mr Ho, who is now a senior adviser at a
think-tank, the Centre for Strategic Futures.
"Just as Sir Stamford Raffles made Singapore a free port in 1819,
welcoming traders from any country, Singapore in 2017 could welcome
data from any country - a free data port," he said.
It could allow data centres in Singapore to hold data governed by
the laws of another country, as if they were stored in the source
country.
This would anchor the data here, allowing local-based companies to
harness insights from data, he added.
It makes sense in a world where data and digital technology
frequently and easily cross international borders.
Estonia's e-residency "hints at how nations could redefine their
identities, and what it means to be a nation, in a digital era,"
said Mr Ho.
Such reinvention can ensure a country's way of life survives beyond
its physical borders, he added.
Quoting an Estonian official, he said: "Land is so yesterday. It
doesn't matter where you physically live or operate. That is how
the game will change.''
But becoming a "virtual nation" carries risks.
To withstand cyber-attacks, Estonia is experimenting with "digital
embassies'', where data is stored on servers in its embassies
abroad.
It is also developing ways to migrate data to commercial servers,
such as those hosted by Microsoft, as back-up in the event that
cyber-attacks take place.
Re-invention in the digital age is a matter of long-term survival
for global hubs like Singapore, said Mr Ho.
This is because changes in technology, trade routes and geopolitics
can gradually diminish a country's position as a global hub.
-- ST