Keeping a step ahead

THIS WEEK'S TOPIC: As Singapore turns 52, what identity does the country need to build in the world at large to maintain its distinctive edge?

John Bittleston Founder & Chair Terrific Mentors International Pte Ltd

MENTION Singapore anywhere in the world in the last 50 years and you get the response "Wow!" We need to maintain the Wow! by being Spectacularly, Visibly, Terrific. Many of the initiatives in place help towards that but we need one defining FIRST to show the world we are still - and can remain - successfully independent. That implies that we must produce an even greater tourist attraction than the excellent initiatives of Marina Bay and others. Air-conditioned, tsunami-protected city, internal-combustionengine- free would do it. We should aim for a 35 per cent per annum increase in tourism. Geographically and geopolitically we are poised to do it.