Why Singapore is what it now is.

• Author: Yew, Lee Kuan
• Position: Documentos

To understand Singapore, you have to know how we were suddenly thrown out of the Federation of Malaysia in 1965 and became an independent state. Peninsular Malaya had been Singapore's hinterland ever since the British founded Singapore in 1819.

We faced a bleak future. We had no natural resources. A small island-nation in the middle of newly independent and nationalistic countries of Indonesia and Malaysia, each determined to cut Singapore off as the middleman. To survive, we had to create a Singapore different from our neighbours --clean, more efficient, more secure, with quality infrastructure, and good living conditions. We sought to provide an environment that our neighbours did not provide -first world standards of reliability and predictability. Important for investors and economic growth, is the rule of law, implemented through an independent judiciary, an honest and efficient police force, and effective law enforcement agencies. Had we not differentiated Singapore in this way, it would have languished and perished as a shrinking trading centre and never become the thriving business, banking, shipping and civil aviation hub it is today.

I studied law in the Cambridge Law School and am a barrister of Middle Temple, an English Inn of Court. I had practised law for a decade before I first took office in 1959 as Prime Minister of self-governing Singapore. Therefore I knew that the rule of law would give Singapore an advantage in the centre of Southeast Asia where the law was often what was decided by the leader, whether a President or Prime Minister, often an ex-military man.

THE SINGAPORE APPROACH TO THE FUNDAMENTALS

* Singapore inherited a sound legal system from the British.

--Clear laws, easy access to justice and an efficient legal system provide the basis for citizens to compete equally in the market and to grow the economy.

--A stable and predictable legal environment facilitates the enforcement of contractual rights and protection of property rights.

--The common law heritage and its developed contract law are known to and have helped attract investors. Our laws relating to financial services are similar to the laws of leading financial centres in other common law jurisdictions such as London and New York. As these are the two leading financial centres in the world, their laws govern the majority of financial transactions worldwide. They ate used freely in Singapore.

* Since 1959 we had adopted English as our working language.

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