It gives me great pleasure to return to my alma mater. Three weeks ago, I attended the 30^th Year Reunion of my batch. When we sang the school song, it was as fresh as when we first sang it 36 years ago.

As Rafflesians, we will always bear the torch for our school. When you first joined the school, I am sure you felt the heavy responsibility to maintain the high standards of the school and bring RI to greater heights. The good news is you will carry this burden for the rest of your life!

Bearing the torch is what you have to do in different ways at various stages of your life. When you serve your National Service, you bear the torch and contribute to the defence and security of Singapore. When you marry and start a family, you bear the torch of carrying your family name to the next generation. In 20 to 25 years� time, you would form the new generation of leaders in Singapore. Then, you would have to bear the torch to lead Singapore into a new era.

Singapore is a small country in Southeast Asia. We have no natural resources and no hinterland. But in less than 40 years, we have created a nation that can stand tall in the world. Successive generations of Rafflesians have contributed to Singapore's achievements, whether in public service, in business or civic society. Together, they help build the Singapore of today.

What kind of Singapore do you want when it is your turn to bear the torch to lead Singapore into a new era? What will you do to ensure that we continue to succeed?

To succeed as a student, you have to do well academically. That is basic. To succeed as a country, Singapore needs to do well economically. Economic growth is basic if we want our people to make a decent living and have a good quality of life. Economic growth generates the resources for us to excel in other areas.

But the world has changed, for RI and for Singapore. RI has been the premier school in Singapore for the last 179 years, and RI today remains one of the top three schools in Singapore. But with globalization, RI�s rivals are no longer just The Chinese High, ACS or the SJI. RI has to compete with the best schools in the region and in the world. You compete with international talent when you participate in the International Informatics Olympiad and the International Schools Software Competition. If you do not compete with them now, you will compete with them when you enter our universities or when you compete for places in the top Ivy League and UK universities. Competition is nothing new. It just comes in different forms.

Like RI, Singapore has to go beyond the local stage to compete on the global stage against big global players, for investments, for markets and for jobs. At the same time, we face fierce competition from China and other regional countries, which have a larger workforce and ample resources, and could do many of the things we do at lower cost.

Singapore needs to restructure itself and find new competitive strengths, if we want to continue to enjoy good economic growth. How do we do that?

First, we have to attract foreign talents to Singapore to help us compete effectively on the global stage. Today, RI continues to attract the best and brightest in Singapore. The school nurtures and develops them. But at the same time, the school opens its doors to foreign students, so that it could tap the best talents from outside Singapore. These foreign talents complement our local talents. They expose our local students to other cultures, add diversity, create a vibrant learning environment and help raise the standards of the school. Together, local and foreign students help RI do better against other schools in the exam hall and on the sports field. Later in life, when these foreign students return to their countries, they will be part of the network of influential friends throughout the region, people who know each other and will help each other in business and in government. If RI were to only admit local students, RI would be the poorer for it, RI boys would be the poorer for it and I am sure, Singapore too would be the poorer for it. Why do we want to compete with one hand tied up?

It is the same for Singapore. To play in the global market, we must have talents of a global standard. We are only a population of 3 million Singaporeans. There are only so many brilliant scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs we can produce. We will do our best to develop our local talents, but we must also tap the best talents from around the world to complement them. These foreign talents will help us compete more effectively against other countries, grow our economy and create jobs for our people. Opening our doors to foreign talents is the key to our future success.

Second, being a small country with limited resources, Singapore cannot expect to excel in all areas. We need to identify niche areas we want to and can excel in. Thirty years ago, the glamorous sports in RI were soccer and rugby. These were the sports we did well in. They gave us our crowning glory. Today, we may no longer do well in these sports. But we have discovered new areas of strength, such as table tennis, cricket and swimming and have put our efforts into excelling in these areas.

It is the same for Singapore. Take the Singapore port. We started off being a very successful entrepot port, with a thriving import and export business. We then move on to become a successful regional transhipment hub. Today, competition from regional ports has stiffened. But we will adopt new strategies and move on to a higher level of competence. We will deliver better value by becoming a global integrated logistics hub. This means that instead of just being a sea hub, or an air hub, we will be a multi-modal hub, covering and integrating land, sea and air transport.

Take manufacturing as another example. We started with assembly-line operations, but other countries can do them as well at much lower costs. We have to shift our emphasis away from these labour-intensive production and move on to higher-value, more knowledge-intensive activities in research and development, product design and marketing and into new and exciting areas in integrated petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, wafer fabs and info-communications. To continue to be successful, we must not be afraid to give up those things we have done well in the past but no longer do so well today. Only then could we move on to identify and develop new areas of success for ourselves.

In areas where we continue to do well, we should work at them and aim to do better, even if we were to face stiff competition. For example, in the marine industry, Singapore started out with just a group of small labour-intensive shipyards doing general repairs. No one would ever imagine that ship repair would be an area of strength for us. But today, Singapore has evolved into a world-class shipbuilding and ship repair centre, excelling in certain niche areas. In the building of jack-up rigs and ship repair, Singapore has captured an estimated 60% and 16% of the world market respectively. Overall, the industry has an annual turnover of S$3 billion and employs 30,000 people. Looking ahead, we expect stiff competition in this sector. China, in particular, poses a strong challenge because of her skilled workers and lower costs. This is particularly so for Chinese shipyards located near to large coastal cities, such as Shanghai. But the marine industry is not a sunset industry for Singapore, and we are not going to give up the fight. We may not be the cheapest but we can continue to enhance the skills of our workforce and upgrade our capabilities to deliver greater value for money. Perhaps, the same can be said of rugby for RI. We were good at rugby in the past, but in recent years, we have lost ground. This has prompted some old Rafflesians to work with the school management to try and revive rugby, instead of giving it up. This is the fighting spirit of Raffles.

Third, we have to be nimble, flexible and adaptable. This is where we turn our small size to advantage. Unlike the big nations, we can change direction earlier, and move forward more quickly. Many of the changes we are introducing recently are aimed at making our economy and society more flexible and responsive. We have succeeded in the past because we were able to identify emerging trends, anticipate the impact and reap the early-mover advantage. Going forward, this will be more difficult because the world has become more volatile and innovations have shorter shelf-lives. Hence, it is more important that we become more flexible and more nimble. Change is always difficult and disruptive. Our strategy is to make these changes in small steps regularly rather than make a wrenching change when it is long overdue.

Singapore is a small country. Because we are small, we will always be vulnerable. We have no choice but to be on our toes all the time. We have to go beyond the local stage to compete on the global stage against the big players. The competition is fierce, but the opportunities and rewards are also tremendous. To succeed, we have to attract and co-opt talent, be nimble, flexible and adaptable, and be ever ready to pick up new skills and venture into new areas.

Is the future optimistic for a small country like Singapore? My answer is a cautious yes. The Old World belonged to the big nations. The bigger, the more powerful. But in the globalised Knowledge World, small nations can play a useful role. Take Luxembourg as an example. It is a landlocked country with a population of 450,000. But the people enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world. They speak French and German, and serve as the banking hub for their bigger neighbours. They attract upmarket tourists. And most surprising of all, they have one of the most competitive steel companies in the world.

Another reason for my cautious optimism is that we are starting from a stronger base. We have better infrastructure, more resources and a better educated population than when we started in 1965. If the first generation of Singaporeans can achieve success with so little resources, surely we can do better with more resources.

What do all these mean to you as an individual? How do you prepare yourself to bear the torch in the remaking of Singapore? I encourage you to acquire the skills and values relevant to the New Singapore. It is not enough for you to do well in science and mathematics and score �A�s for your school subjects. You need also to develop inter-personal skills, be street-smart and seek to be a rounded, versatile individual. Broaden your horizons, be curious, be inquisitive, pick up languages, and learn to operate across cultures. These life skills will prepare you for the new knowledge economy. They will stand you in good stead when the time comes for you to bear the torch and lead Singapore into a new era.

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