[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'.
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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.