GE2025: 1-to-1 with Gan Kim Yong: On being the 'Taskforce man'

AsiaOne

[Part 4] In the fourth instalment of this 5-part interview, AsiaOne finds out how DPM Gan Kim Yong became known as the ‘Taskforce man’. We also asked him whether the concerns on tariffs are just 'political fearmongering'.

Transcript

00:00Well, when you look back, it's probably coincidental because not many people know

00:11when I was Minister for Manpower in 2008, there was a global financial crisis and I had to set

00:18up a work group at the time we call it. At that time we set up this work group to deal with the

00:24crisis at hand. So that was the first encounter. Then we had this COVID-19. COVID-19, I was the

00:31health minister. So naturally it's for me to think about how to manage a crisis. And right from the

00:37beginning, I knew the crisis is going to be more than just the Ministry of Health. And therefore

00:43I decided that I would need a multi-ministry task force. And I asked the senior minister,

00:49Mr. Teo Cheehan at the time was looking after national security. And then I asked the prime

00:54minister to agree that I will set up a multi-ministry task force. Then I told him that actually it is

01:00also more than me. I will need a helper. I will need a co-chairman to help me so that we can work

01:07together. And he gave me Minister Lawrence Wang. Two of us became a co-chairman of the

01:12multi-ministry task force. And now, of course, we have an economic crisis. And it's also

01:18happened that I'm Minister for Trade Industry and economy is really under my portfolio. So I told

01:25the prime minister, I think it's time for us to set up a Singapore Economic Resilience Task Force

01:30to deal with this issue because it's going to be a very long-term issue. It's not going to be a

01:35storm in the teacup. So I think we will need to deal with it seriously. And the prime minister agreed.

01:40And here I am, the chairman of Singapore Economic Resilience Task Force.

01:49This crisis is a very severe crisis. This is no ordinary storm. I think it's going to change the

01:56world. By the time the storm settles, it will be a new world that will be facing. Let me explain

02:01why. After the liberation day announced by the US, they have introduced terrorist after terrorist.

02:07Baseline of 10% terrorist on almost all countries and higher reciprocal terrorist on specific countries.

02:13And most of these have been deferred except China. And China today is facing 145%

02:19tariff for exports into the US. Basically, China will find it not possible to export at all.

02:25And then what will happen? Those companies and products that are supplying to China in order

02:30to export to the US will also stop once Chinese export to the US stops. And what will happen?

02:36And all the whole world economy will be disrupted. And is this likely to be over? I don't think so.

02:44Because the US has explained that one of the purpose of the reciprocal tariff is to provide

02:50protection for their domestic industries and to encourage investors to reshore or onshore investments

02:58into the US. Because they are saying that, look, I have tariffs to protect you. So don't worry, come and

03:03invest in the US. Although it's more expensive, but the tariffs will make imports expensive so you can

03:08compete with them. Well, rather than good. So companies may invest in the US. But after that,

03:14the US cannot reduce the tariffs because these companies who have just invested in the US,

03:19depends on these tariffs to protect them. If you remove the tariffs or lower the tariffs,

03:24then these investments will suffer. So they cannot remove the tariffs, at least not in the short term.

03:31And therefore this is going to change the whole world. Singapore is an open economy. Our economy

03:37depends on the world economy to thrive and grow. If the world economy becomes a tariff war,

03:43the economy will slow down. Employment will slow down. And in the end, Singapore economy

03:49will also slow down because we depend on the world economy.

03:51What will happen to the US? Our enterprises, particularly the small and medium enterprises,

03:59will suffer. What will happen to the jobs? We will begin to lose jobs. In fact, today,

04:05many Singaporeans already feedback to me that they are seeing slower hiring practices by companies.

04:12When people retire, when workers resign, they don't replace anymore. At least not for the meantime,

04:18because they are not certain about the future. What that means is that job opportunities will

04:24diminish. So therefore, if we don't manage it well, we are going to see a significant

04:29slowdown in the economy and significant softening on our job market. But it doesn't mean that

04:35we can't do anything to help ourselves. Many people have decided to wait and see.

04:41We have adopted an approach that we will see, but we cannot wait. And that's why we set up the task

04:49force on Singapore Economic Resilience to look at how we can introduce short-term measures to continue to

04:55keep our enterprises vibrant, to continue to help them to grow, continue to help workers to upgrade and

05:01upskill. At the same time, think about the long-term impact because, as I said, this crisis is very long-term.

05:07So we do want to look at long-term measures to help our economy restructure, transform, help our companies

05:14transform. In the past, they may be selling their products to country A. They may no longer be able

05:20to do so because country A has stiff tariffs. So they may need to develop new countries, country B, country C.

05:27They may be buying raw materials from one particular country, and this country may become very expensive

05:34because they are facing tariffs from other countries. So you may need to also look for alternative sources

05:40of supplies for your raw materials and components. So what this means is that we need to look at how we

05:45can strengthen the resilience of our company, our supply chain. They have to diversify their sources,

05:51diversify their markets. They have to transform themselves, go into new products, new services.

05:56And this cannot happen overnight. But we need to start now, helping companies understand the challenges

06:02and helping them to embark on this journey of transformation. And that is why we introduced

06:07Skills Future Level Up program. And this Level Up program is a mid-career program to help middle-aged

06:14Singapore workers, 40 and 45 and so on, to embark on a major reset of their skill sets so that they are able

06:22to address the needs of skills in a future economy.

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