SINGAPORE: Singapore, fresh from announcing record economic growth, said it must bring in more workers from abroad to help keep inflation low, apparently backsliding on a commitment to stem an influx of foreigners.
The government plans to allow more than 100,000 foreign workers into the city-state this year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told Singapore media during a trip this week to the US.
"If we don't allow the foreign workers in, you are going to have overheating" of the economy, Lee said in a Straits Times article posted Thursday on the prime minister's website. "We have to accept that." The government had pledged earlier this year to stem the inflow of foreigners as part of a policy shift toward boosting economic growth through higher productivity.
Singapore's decades-long boom, which has made it one of the world's wealthiest countries, has been fueled in part by foreign laborers who are willing to do jobs in areas such as construction and hospitality for lower wages than locals.
Singapore also tries to attract what is known locally as "foreign talent" - educated professionals from abroad to work in the finance industry and other high-paying sectors.
About 150,000 foreign workers have entered Singapore per year since 2007, and they now comprise about a third of the island's 3 million work force and about a fourth of the total population of 5 million, up from 10 percent in 1990.
The large numbers of foreign workers threatens to become a political issue at the next general election, which the government must call by next year. Many of the newcomers are from China, India and other Asian countries and may not speak fluent English, which is one of Singapore's four official languages.
Local media have reported growing gripes by Singaporeans about poor quality costumer service at restaurants and retail stores, crowded subways and occasional violent crimes by foreigners.
"Singaporeans are complaining about the rising number of foreigners living in their midst which makes them feel like strangers in their own country," said an article on the political and social commentary website Temasek Review.
Without setting a timetable, the government has targeted a population of 6.5 million for the island of 710 sq km.
Singapore's ruling People's Action Party has been in power continuously since 1959. Since the late 1960s, the small and fragmented opposition has never won more than a handful of seats in Parliament, which critics say partly reflects the chilling effect of frequent defamation lawsuits against government opponents.
The government said Wednesday that gross domestic product soared 19.3 percent in the second quarter, the fastest growth since the government began releasing quarterly GDP figures in 1975.
Singapore expects the economy to grow up to 15 percent this year.
Policymakers are eyeing the inflation rate, which the government expects to rise to about 3 percent this year from 0 percent last year. The central bank in April shifted its exchange rate target from a zero percent appreciation of the Singapore dollar to a "modest and gradual" appreciation in a bid to dampen price increases.
Singapore is seeking to diversify its economy away from manufacturing toward tourism, and foreign workers are playing a key role in building and staffing projects such as the casino resorts opened this year by Las Vegas Sands and Malaysia's Genting, which have helped attract record visitors.
