Singapore 2025

1. APPLICATIONS FOR PERMANENT RESIDENCE

Mr Pritam Singh: To ask the Prime Minister (a) how many applications for permanent residence have been rejected on a yearly basis from 2000 to 2010; and (b) what are the specific criteria for approval of such applications.

Mr Teo Chee Hean:

The number of permanent residence (PR) applications which were rejected on a yearly basis from 2000 to 2010 is appended below.

      Source: ICA

Each PR application is evaluated holistically on a set of criteria which includes factors such as the individual’s economic contributions, qualifications, age and family profile to assess applicants’ ability to contribute and integrate well into society and commitment to sinking roots. It would not be appropriate to reveal the specific criteria for approval of PR applications as this could encourage individuals to attempt to circumvent or abuse the system. For this reason, most countries do not publicly disclose their detailed selection criteria for residency or citizenship.

2. JUDICIAL EXECUTIONS IN SINGAPORE

 Mr Pritam Singh: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs from 2004 to 2010, how many criminals have been hanged in Singapore and what is the breakdown in terms of foreigners, permanent residents and Singaporeans for each of these years.

Mr Teo Chee Hean:

The Singapore Prison Service publishes the number of judicial executions in its Prisons Annual Report. This is publicly available on its website.

From 2004 to 2010, there were a total of 26 Singaporeans and 12 foreigners who were executed in Singapore. There were no Permanent Residents executed during this period. The breakdown is provided in the table below.

Note: Singapore Prisons Service (SPS) began publishing data online from 2007. Available SPS data online is not categorised into local and foreigner executions. However, SPS data online reveals executions for offences, i.e. murder, drug trafficking, firearms.

3. EMPLOYMENT AT CASINOS

 Mr Pritam Singh: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Manpower what are the latest available employment figures for our two casinos and what is the percentage breakdown in terms of foreigners, permanent residents and Singaporeans employed.

Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam:

The government is unable to provide the firm-level statistics which the member has asked for as such statistics are protected under the Statistics Act.  Nonetheless, there is some publicly available information from the two Integrated Resorts (IRs). They have recently stated that they directly employ more than 22,000 workers, of which about 70% are locals.

MTI estimates that the IRs will add $2.7 billion (or approximately 0.8%) to Singapore’s annual GDP and generate between 50,000 and 60,000 direct and indirect jobs throughout the economy by 2015. Government agencies including MOM, MTI, WDA and STB will continue to provide strong support to their recruitment and training of Singaporeans for jobs within the IRs.

4. NATIONAL SERVICE DEFERMENT FOR ENLISTEES PURSUING QUALIFICATIONS IN MEDICINE

 Mr Pritam Singh: To ask the Minister for Defence (a) what is the Ministry’s current policy on National Service deferment for enlistees pursuing qualifications in medicine in local and overseas institutions across the educational spectrum from undergraduate to post-graduate and specialisation courses or training; (b) whether there have there been any changes to this policy since its inception; and (c) if exceptions have been made, under what circumstances have they been made.

Dr Ng Eng Hen:

In response to a separate parliamentary question on October 20^th 2011, the Minister for Defence has provided details to MINDEF’s policy of disruption for medical studies which address the queries in this question. Please refer to that reply. To summarise, since 1973, MINDEF has allowed full-time National Servicemen (NSFs) to disrupt for medical studies as we need military doctors to serve in the SAF.  From 1981 to 1992, disruption was extended to NSFs to obtain overseas medical degrees that were recognised by the Singapore Medical Council, as the number of local medical graduates was insufficient.  From 1992, disruption for overseas medical studies was no longer allowed, as there were enough local medical graduates to meet the SAF’s needs.

The length of disruption varied, based on the time required to obtain the medical degree. It took longer for those completing medical degrees in the United States, where medicine is a graduate program and required a pre-medical degree for entry.

All those disrupted for medical studies met eligibility criteria that were explicitly stated.

Ends.