MALAYS IN RESIDENT POPULATION

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MALAYS IN RESIDENT POPULATION: 4.

Mdm Halimah Yacob asked the Prime Minister in light of the 2010 Census which shows that the Malay share of the resident population has slipped from 14.8% in 1970 to 13.4% this year (a) what can be done to prevent the present population mix which has contributed to racial and religious harmony from further

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declining; and (b) what measures have been taken to attract Malay foreign talent into Singapore.

Mr Wong Kan Seng (for the Prime Minister): Mr Speaker, Sir, the share of Malays in the resident population, which includes citizens and permanent residents, has decreased marginally over the last 40 years, as noted by Mdm Halimah. In absolute terms, however, the Malay resident population has increased from 298,000 to 504,000 over the same period. If we only consider the citizen population, the share of Malays among the citizen population has grown from 14.1% in 1970 to 15.1% in year 2010. Overall, they remain the second largest ethnic group following the Chinese.

The key factors influencing the population mix are local fertility and immigration. While the Malay resident fertility rate has been declining in recent years, it has remained higher than that of the Chinese and Indians. As fertility rates for all ethnic groups have fallen below replacement levels, I encourage all Singaporeans to avail themselves of the measures supporting marriage and parenthood.

Nonetheless, reversing fertility trends will take time and, in the interim, immigration is necessary to augment our local population. We welcome immigrants of all ethnic groups who can contribute to our economy and integrate well into our society. At the same time we are careful not to allow the inflow of immigrants to upset the current mix of races among our population.

Mdm Halimah Yacob: Thank you, Deputy Prime Minister, for that clarification. Just one supplementary question. Could the Deputy Prime Minister share with the House what are some of the challenges that the Government faces in trying to attract Malay foreign talent? Moving ahead, as we see the decline in

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the birth rate of the Malay community and the difficulties that we faced in attracting Malay foreign talent, what other measures can be implemented to address this issue?

Mr Wong Kan Seng: Sir, the second question first. The total fertility rate (TFR) for the Malay population has been declining over the last few years. Many years ago it was still quite high and now it has trended down but still it is much higher than that for the Indians and the Chinese. For the Chinese, TFR has gone to below 1.1; for the Indians, it is not too far from that. For the Malays, it is 1.82. It is still quite high compared to the other races.

As to how to attract Malay talents from around the region: there are job opportunities in Singapore and those who live around here know that we operate a different system, we have meritocracy and the job markets are available and opportunities are equal for all and people are rewarded by their performance, not by their particular relations with any particular group of people in power. In order for us to make our place attractive, we are already different. What we cannot do is to go overseas and target specific ethnic groups to come to Singapore. And what we do not have are immigration consultants, like for some countries, openly going to other countries to advertise and help and facilitate residents or nationals there to migrate to another country. I think we can read that in our own newspapers that there are immigration consultants giving advice to Singaporeans and facilitating their migration to other countries. We have not done that. We understand the sensitivities involved but what we can do and have done is to make scholarships available. We have ASEAN scholarships, for example, and we have companies who are out there recruiting people and they are also interested in having a heterogeneous, multinational workforce because they have operations, companies and businesses

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in other countries. They are also recruiting people by offering them scholarships. So, we hope more of our companies can do that. Hopefully they come here to work for a while and, if they like our place, they may want to settle down. This is a place which they can think about.