REMITTANCE OF PROFITS BY FOREIGN INVESTORS

Dr Lee Siew-Choh asked the Minister for Finance what were the total amounts of profits, dividends, fees and other earnings remitted overseas by foreign investors and companies over the years 1979 to 1988.

Dr Richard Hu Tsu Tau: My Ministry is not able to provide data on the exact amounts of money remitted out of Singapore according to who remitted the money and the source of the money. This is because we do not have foreign exchange controls.

The Department of Statistics under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, however, has estimates of profits attributed to non-resident investors, divided between distributed and undistributed profits. But it is not known how much of the distributed profits have actually been remitted overseas. Some would be re-invested, together with fresh capital from abroad. The relevant estimates, made for the purposes of the Balance of Payment statistics, are given below.

You will note that the total profits attributed to foreign investors over the nine years 1979 to 1987 was $17.0 billion. Complete data for the year 1988 is not yet available. TABLE ----- Profits attributed to non-resident investors, net of amounts retained in company or branch Year $ million -------------- 1979 922.3 1980 1,350.9 1981 1,867.2 1982 2,276.6 1983 1,789.3 1984 2,325.9 1985 1,869.1 1986 2,057.1 1987 2,496.3 (preliminary) ----- -------- Total 16,954.7 Source: Department of Statistics.