Tharman Shanmugaratnam: The Gallery - promoting Singapore's central
bank role and mission
Remarks by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore,
at the Opening of the MAS Gallery, Singapore, 16 February 2016.
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ESM Goh Chok Tong
Family members of Former Chairmen, Mr Hon Sui Sen and Dr Goh Keng Swee, and of former
Managing Director Mr Lim Kim San
Former Managing Directors, Mr Michael Wong Pak-Shong, Mr JY Pillay and Mr Lee Ek Tieng
Current Board members
Members of the MAS management and staff,
and especially, MAS Pioneers
Thank you to everyone for coming to the opening of our MAS Gallery.
The Gallery is aimed at helping the public understand the mission of the MAS, and its role in
promoting both growth and stability of the Singapore economy and financial system.
The Gallery aims to help the public understand
• how we keep inflation low over the long term through MAS' policies in managing the
exchange rate of the Singapore dollar,
• how we supervise the financial sector - the banking, insurance and securities
industries - to ensure confidence in our financial system,
• how we promote the development of a vibrant financial centre that serves a good part
of Asia and in some respects the rest of the world,
• how we also seek to ensure that the financial system serves the interests of
consumers, and how we try to help Singaporeans manage their finances well.
The MAS staff responsible for the Gallery have put a lot of thought into its design and content.
But the Gallery will keep evolving, and we will want it to stay relevant to Singaporeans young
and old.
It is significant too that we are opening the Gallery in 2016, when we commemorate the
45th anniversary of the MAS. If we think about what we have achieved in these 45 years,
what's most precious is credibility. Credibility is the most precious asset that a central bank
and a financial regulator can have.
The MAS' credibility was founded in its early years. I want to mention the leaders and staff who
were involved in putting in placed these foundations of today's credibility. Mr Hon Sui Sen in
particular, our first Chairman (1971-1980), Mr Michael Wong Pak-Shong, who was the
Managing Director, and the staff at that time, including Mr Ng Kok Song, Mrs Ong-Ang Ai Boon,
Mrs Elizabeth Sam. Together they built an organisation, bringing together no fewer than nine
different offices and functions in Government at the time, melding them together in one
organisation.
They also set the foundations for an international financial centre. Singapore was not a serious
financial centre until then. Mr Hon Sui Sen and his team built the foundation for a financial
centre that went beyond Singapore. In Mr Hon's words, said back in 1972:
"In Asia, Singapore now offers the best prospects for developing into a financial
centre, if not for the whole of Asia, at least beyond the Southeast Asian or ASEAN
region."
So it started then, and continued through the years when Dr Goh Keng Swee became
Chairman (1980-85). But the most important development in this second phase, starting when
Dr Goh led the MAS, was the re-orienting of our monetary policy to one centred on the S$
exchange rate. It was a novel policy at the time. We were one of the few central banks that
managed monetary policy by focusing exclusively on the exchange rate. It was not
conventional, but it has worked.
Through that second phase in MAS' evolution, with Dr Goh as Chairman and subsequently
under Dr Richard Hu's chairmanship (1985-1997), we built credibility in our exchange
ratecentred monetary policy. We also built credibility as a no-nonsense financial regulator. That
was a very important second phase, in the 1980s and 1990s.
The third phase began when PM Lee Hsien Loong, then DPM, took over as Chairman of
MAS (1997-2004), and continued through the years when ESM Goh was Chairman (2004-
2011). It involved liberalising and opening up our financial sector to greater competition, and
at the same time developing further resilience in the system.
This seemed a contradiction in terms to many countries - liberalising and opening up but at
the same time developing resilience in the financial centre. But we have achieved both. We
have managed the tension between liberalisation and developing resilience. I think we've
managed it rather well. If you look at what happened during the Asian Financial Crisis and
subsequently, the Global Financial Crisis, we have come out as one of the safest financial
systems in the world.
So that was an important third phase - liberalising and opening the financial centre but also
developing further resilience.
Our credibility today rests on each of these three major phases in MAS' development and
policies - from the foundational years, to the period when we reoriented monetary policy and
then in the last phase, liberalising and developing further resilience of the financial centre. The
credibility has added up over the years.
I also want to say that MAS has become an organisation of excellence. This has particularly
been due, in my opinion, to the organisational development efforts that began especially in the
mid-1980s, when Mr JY Pillay came in as the Managing Director, followed in subsequent years
by Mr Lee Ek Tieng.
There was a great focus on organisational development from the mid-80s. It happened that
both Mr Pillay and Mr Lee Ek Tieng were amongst the most senior leaders in the public sector.
They led the transformation of the MAS as an organisation of people. We developed an
organisation that provided strong careers for individuals and ensured they worked as teams.
It's been a very important effort, this organisational development.
And the third thing I want to mention that is very important to the MAS is its growth of
professional expertise. MAS is a little different from some other parts of the government
because it requires greater depth of expertise. We need serious specialists - people who
spend years developing expertise and in particular fields of our responsibility. That too is
behind our credibility, because you need some expertise to have credibility.
Through the years we have developed outstanding professionals - Ng Kok Song, Mrs
FooYap Siew Hong, who served us for 39 years, Ms Teo Swee Lian and many others. Our present
Managing Director, Mr Ravi Menon, is another example, someone who grew up as a
professional within the organisation. We have to keep developing professional expertise in
each of the areas that we engage in.
When you add it all up, MAS is now one of the best regarded central banks and financial
regulators in the world. And it is because of our people. Our people are very well regarded
internationally and as an organisation we punch above our weight. That comes from years
building up our organisation and building up our people.
Finally I want to thank all the staff - our pioneers as well as current staff, in all the roles that
you perform in, in various areas in MAS. Some of you have been through a few or even several
departments in your career. I want to thank all of you for making MAS what it is today.
I hope this Gallery is a testament to your work in building up an MAS that has credibility, at
home in Singapore and all over the world.