Page 27 - The Art of Leadership (preview)

Mr Lee Kuan Ye w

‘‘

There was such a thing called an ”entrepreneurial culture“ in a society that

encouraged many to try to succeed in business.
’’

influx of ready-made entrepreneurs, manu- to try to succeed in business. nor the expertise to make such risk assess-
facturers, bankers, shipping operators and I have also studied how Taiwan benefitted ments and to manage such risks. When we

traders from the coastal cities, such as from some entrepreneurs who had come from had to industrialise to solve our high unem-
Shanghai, Xiamen, Shantou and Guangzhou. Mainland China, but by and large, the main- ployment, we were compelled to start the
They built the manufacturing industry in landers in Taiwan controlled the bureaucracy Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) to
Hong Kong, starting with textiles, plastics, and the military. This left the native Taiwan- undertake the risks of lending to new manu-
toys, and businesses like shipping and ese in agriculture, trading and manufacturing. facturing ventures. This was how govern-

banking. They were experienced entrepre- And they were the entrepreneurs who started ment-linked companies (GLCs) came about.
neurs and they spawned an “entrepreneurial the many small and medium enterprises that Because we did not have enough entrepre-
culture” among the other displaced people became the striking feature of Taiwan’s eco- neurs and those we had lacked the capital or

who flooded into Hong Kong from China. nomic dynamism. The big state-owned enter- interest, the government ministers undertook
One Hong Kong manufacturer settled here prises that needed massive investments for the task of starting new ventures. I had a
and became a Singapore citizen. Over lunch, steel, ship-building and petrochemicals were number of highly successful entrepreneurial
he recounted to me that the Singaporeans he run by the mainlanders. ministers — Goh Keng Swee, Hon Sui Sen and
employed more than ten years ago were still Hence, it is not surprising that Singapore did Lim Kim San. They launched new enterpris-

working for him as senior managers because not have a strong entrepreneurial tradition. es. Goh started a shipping line with govern-
they were completely trustworthy and effi- Our businessmen were mostly traders and ment officers and had a Pakistani shipping
cient. However, the managers he brought shopkeepers with no experience in investing expert to guide them. I did not know then that

from Hong Kong had left him to start gar- in factories that required long gestation peri- we would leave the Pakistanis behind in the
ment businesses of their own to compete ods and large capital expenditure before they shipping business. Neptune Orient Lines
with him. They saw what he was doing and could break even and eventually become (NOL) eventually succeeded. When Malay-
did likewise. I had to change my mind. There profitable. Singapore banks were not keen to sia-Singapore Airlines was broken up, we
was such a thing called an “entrepreneurial advance money to such traders to start facto- started Singapore Airlines (SIA) headed by

culture” in a society that encouraged many ries. Our bankers did not have the experience some outstanding civil servants. National Iron

11

10158_Contents_12May.indd 11 14/11/17 4:21 PM