Opening Keynote Address by Minister Desmond Lee at CNA Summit 2025: Trade-offs in Leadership
Feb 20, 2025
Good afternoon. I am delighted to be able to join you here at the CNA Summit, which explores how leaders across different sectors manage tensions and trade-offs to achieve strategic outcomes.
Introduction
When you look at Singapore, you see tight constraints. We are a very small island city-state, no natural resources, no hinterland, vulnerable to the external environment.
As a principle, we strive to do more and to do better for Singaporeans, and to avoid making stark binary trade-offs wherever possible. But inevitably, when constraints become more binding, we will have to manage tensions and make difficult trade-offs between competing objectives.
For instance, given limited resources, do we meet today’s pressing needs, or do we save more for tomorrow’s generation? Do we conserve, or do we develop? How do we manage diverse and sometimes conflicting aspirations of different groups of Singaporeans?
Despite these tight constraints, we’ve built a thriving global hub and vibrant city over 60 years. We are home to a world-class seaport and air hub, a leading financial centre, and with a home ownership rate of close to 90% in our City in Nature. We’ve built a thriving global hub and vibrant city, and are celebrating SG60 – 60 years of nation-building – this year.
But certainly, in the years ahead, we will face even greater challenges. The economic and geopolitical outlook is uncertain. Our population is ageing, technology-driven disruptions will be even more rapid and we have to grapple with existential threats like climate change and rising sea levels.
Like our pioneers, we strive to turn our challenges into opportunities. PM Lawrence Wong announced the SG60 budget two days ago – addressing current concerns, but also taking the long view to prepare Singapore and invest heavily in Singaporeans, so that we can seize future opportunities.
Today, I will describe how we manage some of the tensions and trade-offs that we face in urban planning – namely 5 of our land optimisation strategies; the 4 core approaches that guide them; and the 3 enablers that make them possible. I will then illustrate these in 2 foundational areas and our main goal for Singapore to stay liveable, sustainable and exceptional.
One of the most obvious constraints for us is land. There are many pressing demands for land. At the same time, while we are a city, we also have to fit everything that a sovereign country needs within our city limits. This creates tremendous pressures.
Strategies
Over the decades, we have developed strategies to overcome some of these constraints. First, as good stewards of our land, we optimise through intensification. Build upwards and also, make use of vertical spaces. We also build mixed-use developments that integrate residential, commercial and recreational spaces, to reap benefits between synergistic uses, and make our spaces more vibrant.
For instance, Guoco Tower is a mixed-use development in Singapore’s city centre – an ambitious 38-storey vertical city that comprises commercial, residential, retail, hotel and green elements. In Our Tampines Hub, Singapore’s largest integrated community and lifestyle hub, we have integrated a stadium and sports facilities, retail shops, a hawker centre and other amenities in a single building. If we had to allocate individual land parcels for each of these, the amount of land consumed would have been much more.
Second, we try to unlock new spaces: One way is through reclamation. For example, more than 40 years ago, our pioneers decided to reclaim land to give us options to expand our city centre. This has allowed us to create a new business and financial hub: Marina Bay and Marina South. Another way is to go underground. For instance, the Jurong Rock Caverns – Southeast Asia’s first underground hydrocarbon storage cavern – is 150m below ground level. This freed up 60ha of surface land.
Third, we recycle our land and carry out strategic redevelopment. Brownfield sites can be repurposed for new developments, allowing us to reallocate spaces to meet current and future needs. One major example is Paya Lebar Airbase, which we will relocate to Changi from the 2030s. This gives us the opportunity to comprehensively redevelop the 800ha site and its surrounding industrial estates into a highly liveable and sustainable new town.
Fourth, we try to innovate to maximise our usage of space. Take the East Coast Integrated Depot, set to open in 2026. This will be the first of its kind in the world. It combines a multi-storey train depot and bus depot. This will save us 44ha worth (or 60 football fields) of land and 40% in construction costs.
Fifth, we need to develop big, strategic moves today for the prosperity of tomorrow. We must be prepared to reimagine our urban spaces, to create space and bandwidth for us to do more.
Take the Greater Southern Waterfront. It will be a major gateway for urban living along Singapore’s southern coast. To free up large tracts of prime waterfront land, we are moving existing ports in Tanjong Pagar and Pasir Panjang to Tuas Mega Port. This also allows port operations to be more efficient. When completed in the 2040s, Tuas Mega Port will be the world’s largest fully automated port.
Principles that guide us
At the core of it, there are 4 key approaches driving the 5 important optimisation strategies that I’ve just mentioned.
The first is disciplined long term-planning. We have institutionalised this in our land-use planning since the 1950s. Every 10 years, we undertake a Long-Term Plan Review to plan 50 years into the future. Because land use changes take a long time to bring into effect. We then translate these planning strategies into a detailed Master Plan of every part of Singapore - housing, industry, recreation, healthcare and more for the next 10 to 15 years.
Second, we bring agencies and stakeholders together to execute and implement effectively. Preparing the land, putting in the infrastructure such as roads and utilities and services and addressing pain points and disamenities as we roll out the developments.
Third, some plans are much longer term, and benefit future generations. We must be prepared to embark on projects that take decades to bear fruit and have the political will and the resources to follow through. These innovative projects are not easy, requiring time, effort and resources to overcome complex technical challenges. Yet we pursue them because the long-term benefits are clear – they transform constraints such as land scarcity into catalysts for forward-thinking urban solutions and sustainable growth.
For example: Long Island. It is an ambitious plan to reimagine our southeastern coast. It will protect our low-lying East Coast area against future sea level rise, and also create space for future needs such as housing, recreation and jobs, and a new reservoir of fresh water to enhance our water security. It will take many decades to complete, and we’ve just started, but we have to start coastal protection work now, because the price of delay or failure will be too high for our future generations to bear.
Fourth, even while we plan long term, we should also stay nimble and agile, and refresh our plans to keep pace with emerging trends and developments. This was particularly important during Black Swan events like COVID – We had to find land or adapt spaces for additional medical facilities, dorms, and other urgent uses.
Enablers
While our 5 optimisation strategies in urban planning and 4 core approaches help us overcome land and other constraints, there are 3 important enablers that must be in place to help us turn vision into reality.
One, technology, AI and digital tools. We have always been pushing boundaries in using technology and digital tools to plan, design and build more efficiently. Recent developments in Artificial Intelligence can only add to this.
For example, the Design and Planning Lab at URA has been integrating geographic information system technology or GIS, data analytics and modelling and simulation tools into URA’s urban planning processes.
These help planners anticipate changes in demographic needs or activity and mobility patterns, to enhance our precision, efficiency and foresight.
Two, we engage the public and our stakeholders extensively. We conduct briefings, dialogues, town halls and more, to develop plans with the public, and for people with different interests and perspectives to hear from one another. We do this for many of our major plans. Just yesterday, I was at an engagement with 160 young Singaporeans on our Draft Master Plan. To better understand our evolving housing needs, we have also engaged 16,000 people in our Forward SG engagements since 2022.
This has guided real policy changes. For example, due to public consensus, we adjusted our public housing policy in 2023, to give greater housing priority for parents & married couples who are buying their first home. As a result, about 9 in 10 of such applicants have so far been invited to book a flat in categories where they are given first priority.
We also create Alliances for Action (AfA), where the Government partners Singaporeans to address a common challenge. Each member contributes their perspective and resources, and together, we achieve more than the sum of our individual efforts.
And three, our success has been anchored by our strong social compact. This compact embodies a mutual understanding – while the Government is committed to doing its part, Singaporeans also play a critical role.
For generations, Singaporeans have looked beyond our own personal interests and made sacrifices. Aspirations can outstrip the reality of our size and our resources, yet a truly successful society is one where everyone succeeds together.
For this to happen, we must continue to foster a strong sense of collective responsibility and to think of the next generation. These principles are not new. Let me talk about two examples where our pioneers also faced trade-offs, and made difficult – but necessary – decision to open new pathways for Singapore’s long-term success.
Public Housing
One example is public housing. In our early years, we started public housing to address urgent housing shortages and poor living conditions. Our pioneers also had a clear vision – that owning a home would give Singaporeans a strong stake in our fledgling nation. It was not just about building flats, but building a nation.
At the same time, there was no certainty that this was the better path. Like many other countries, we could have left it to the private sector, while the Government provided public housing as a social safety net. But they decided, rightly, that this would not have achieved the same economic and social outcomes. Homeownership could end up out of reach for many if left to the private sector and market forces.
So our pioneers chose to take the more difficult path. The Government had to acquire land. And there was a large fiscal cost to build our public housing estates.
But their vision paid off. Today, around 80% of Singaporeans live in HDB flats, and we have one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. Through our public housing system, we have been able to pursue many important social objectives, such as fostering an inclusive society, promoting multiculturalism, supporting families and seniors, empowering vulnerable groups.
As the largest developer of housing in Singapore, HDB also pushes the boundaries in technology adoption. Today, it is our turn to carry on the work of our pioneers. But society evolves, and our public housing policies must keep pace.
For example, we want to ensure that all places remain accessible to Singaporeans from different walks of life, so we support social mixing in our public housing estates. We have seen that in other metropolitan cities, homes in attractive locations are more expensive, and over time, they become accessible only to the wealthy, while others are pushed further out into the suburbs, or further into deprived inner-cities.
This stratifies society and stokes tensions between different groups. To try to counter these forces, we implemented the New Flat Classification Framework – our Standard, Plus and Prime classification. This major policy move will enable us to build affordable public housing in choicer and more central areas – such as the Greater Southern Waterfront, Bukit Timah Turf City – to keep our neighbourhoods and communities diverse, while ensuring that the system of public subsidies remains fair.
Our public rental flats can also be found in more areas across Singapore, even in Plus and Prime locations, and integrated with other BTO flats. This gives families in public rental better access to the same facilities, schools and amenities. We cannot take present success for granted. We must continue to keep improving our foundations for our next generation.
City in Nature
Let me highlight another foundational example – our City in Nature. Today, we are one of the world’s greenest cities. We have nature reserves and nature areas in the heart of the city, parks and green spaces across the island, and diverse marine habitats in our waters.
This did not happen by chance. In the 1960s, newly-independent and newly-industrialising, small densely-populated Singapore could easily have become a concrete jungle – a city of brick, mortar and steel, like so many other cities. In fact, if you look at old archival photos, you won’t see that many trees in our city area.
But from the onset, our founding Prime Minister, the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew, saw what greening could mean for Singapore. It would give people respite from the city; distinguish ourselves and attract investments.
Greenery could be a social leveller, where all Singaporeans had access to green spaces. And so over the past 60 years, successive generations of Singaporeans have been stewarding our environment, intentionally building a green and liveable city, even as we face ever more intense land use pressures. And we must continue this work, so that future generations can enjoy the same liveable environment.
Conclusion
Mr Lee Kuan Yew once said, “We faced tremendous odds with an improbable chance of survival.” And over the past 60 years, we have not just survived, but thrived.
Looking ahead, we will continue to face challenges. If we focus only on binary trade-offs, allow competing tensions to pull society apart, or fail to steward our land and resources well, then we risk succumbing to the odds of improbability.
But our history has shown us that: instead of choosing between one or the other, we have consistently found ways to do more with so much less – to grow our economy, create good jobs while creating a liveable home for Singaporeans; to build a thriving metropolis while respecting our heritage and natural environment.
This is possible only because generations of Singaporeans have remained committed to one another through a strong social compact.
As PM Lawrence Wong said during his Budget speech, “At every turn, we have chosen determination over despair, innovation over stagnation and solidarity over division.”
Everything flows from this – our ability to plan long-term, make trade-offs fairly, rally Singaporeans to make sacrifices for the common wider good, and deal with whatever challenges come our way.
With our refreshed social compact under Forward SG, I am confident that we have what it takes to turn future challenges into opportunities, and to bring Singapore to greater heights.
Thank you.