AS SINGAPORE seeks to maximise itself as an economic entity, the question before many of us is whether it will be a land to retire in or, by natural progression, a place where people are optimised to create maximum economic value.
One option is the creation of an offshore retirement city for Singaporeans. We could develop a massive retirement township that could eventually support a retirement population of one million. The ideal location should be beautiful and scenic and have a pleasant climate (mild four seasons) and low cost of living. Such a destination should have frequent and affordable air flights to Singapore for retirees to maintain their family ties and services from golf to health care that are kept affordable due to lower cost of land and labour.
Singaporeans should also be granted long-term retirement visas by the host government thanks to a government-to-government arrangement and offered lifestyle services and brands from Singapore enterprises, especially those from the fledging 'silver' industry. Some basic services such as transport and health care could be subsidised from a higher tax base by maximising our home base's economic value creation.
Even without a full laundry list of benefits, it is evident such a development could make retirement more a boon than a burden for most of us, alleviate Singapore's land capacity problem, preserve our national wealth, create mass employment for the host country and develop our much-touted silver industry. This could turn a seemingly insurmountable challenge into a golden opportunity as we continously seek to re-invent ourselves.
Singapore has contributed to major overseas developments such as Batam and Suzhou and will co-develop the Tianjin Eco-city on the basis of sharing mutual benefits with the host government. Using that experience, let's tap excellent government-to-government ties with a host country in a project led by a major Singapore developer.
