Goh Keng Swee
(b. 1918), finance minister and minister of education of Singapore. Goh Keng Swee was born in Melaka to parents of Chinese ancestry. After earning a doctorate from the London School of Economics, he became finance minister of Singapore in 1959. When Singapore became independent in 1965, Goh embarked on a pragmatic program of industrial development, which was to be financed by foreign capital. His program brought prosperity to the island republic while neighboring countries floundered economically.
At the core of his development plan were incentives to foreign corporations. Foreign firms were allowed to operate in tax-free enclaves, exempt from local regulations pertaining to working and other conditions. As a result, Singapore induced many multinational corporations to establish Southeast Asian regional offices there.
In 1979, Goh became minister of education during a crisis in which the government feared that Singapore's students were not ready to meet the challenges posed by an economy based on high technology. In response, Goh revamped the public school system, stressing English as the preferred language of instruction.
Goh retired from politics in 1984. Subsequently, he has served as an advisor to the governments of the People's Republic of China and Singapore on economic matters. His legacy to Singapore is that it became one of the top-ten countries in the world in per capita gross national product, surpassing even Great Britain, by the 1990s.
Further Reading
Low, Linda. (1998) The Political Economy of a City-State: Government-Made Singapore. Singapore: Oxford University Press.
Murray, G., and A. Perera. (1996) Singapore: The Global City State. New York: St. Martin's.
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