page_title: Goh Keng Swee
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Goh Keng Swee / Later life
caption_attribution_description: UOB Plaza Towers and OUB Centre
context_page_description: Goh Keng Swee DUT was a Singaporean politician who served as the second Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore from 1973 to 1984, and a Member of Parliament for the Kreta Ayer constituency for a quarter of a century.
  Born in Malacca in the Straits Settlements into a Peranakan family, he came to Singapore at the age of two years. He was a student at Raffles College and the London School of Economics and Political Science, and his interest in politics began during his time in London, where he met fellow students seeking independence for British Malaya.
  From 1945 onwards he worked for the Department of Social Welfare, eventually rising to become its director. In 1958 he resigned from the Civil Service to work full-time for the People's Action Party, becoming a key member and later vice-chairman of its Central Executive Committee. The following year he successfully contested the Kreta Ayer seat in the 1959 general election for the Legislative Assembly, and joined the first government of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew as Minister for Finance. Upon Singapore's independence on 9 August 1965, Goh became the nation's first Minister for the Interior and Defence.
context_section_description: After retirement from politics, Goh continued to be active in public life, serving as Deputy Chairman of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (1981–94), Economic Adviser to the State Council of the People's Republic of China on coastal development and Adviser on tourism (1985), Deputy Chairman of the MAS (1985 – 31 May 1992), Chairman of the Singapore Totalisator Board (1988–94), a Director of Gateway Technologies Services Pte. Ltd. (from 1991), adviser to the United Overseas Bank group (from 1 January 1993), Chairman of N.M. Rothschild & Sons (Singapore) Ltd. (from 1994), and Vice-Chairman of Hong Leong Asia Ltd. (from 1995). Between 1983 and 1992, he was chairman of the board of Governors of the Institute of East Asian Philosophies, which was founded to study Confucianism. The Institute later turned its focus on China's political and economic development, renaming itself the Institute of East Asian Political Economy, and Goh continued as its Executive chairman and the chairman of its Board of Governors until 1995. In April 1997, the Institute was reconstituted as the East Asian Institute, an autonomous research organisation under the auspices of the National University of Singapore.
caption: The two towers of UOB Plaza with OUB Centre visible in between. Goh was adviser to the United Overseas Bank group following his retirement from politics.
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