If GDP figures were Mr Lee’s report card, he has certainly scored as the nation’s economic strategist, growing Singapore’s GDP from S$ 194 billion ( US$ 144 billion ) in 2004 to more than S$ 600 billion last year.
As Prime Minister and the Finance Minister from 2001 to 2007, Mr Lee succeeded in making Singapore’s business even more complex than it was, and turning the area into a more global town, as a social scientist put it in 2014, 10 times into Mr Lee’s league.
In reality, Mr Lee does had grown it very hard at one point. In the 2011 General Election, voters criticized his party because of the high cost of cover and the effects of a large-influx of foreigners on public network. The Prime Minister apologized to electors for these errors halfway through the GE.
The PAP lost its second Group Representation Constituency in that crucial poll, and its voting share dropped to 60 at the time. 1 per share.
But, Mr. Lee himself claimed in an exam in 2015 that he was particularly pleased with the emphasis he had placed on learning and that he did not seem to think that financial success was his greatest factor. On his view, more investment and training has been made in the colleges and the Institutes of Technical Education.
Speaking about the next stage of Singapore’s growth in that meeting eight years ago, he said:“ I think that for the next step, the narrative may be a second word, nation-building. It has to be that we live in Singapore, we have a house, this is a position which is quite unique. ”
Singapore has gradually changed its stance over the years from violently expanding the economy to providing more detailed social safety nets and bridging the income gap. The Gini coefficient, a common measure of earnings injustice, has fallen in the past decade, even as household incomes pattern upward.
Singapore’s healthcare system was not hampered in the same way that other cities were when the crisis was at its height, despite the COVID-19 epidemic putting some nations on the back foot and exposing spaces in public health management and worsening inequality.
Singapore’s enough financial resources, which bankrolled meaningful COVID-19 support steps helped the economy pull through relatively unscathed.
Through it all, Mr Lee addressed the nation many times, communicating clearly the very flow position and COVID-19 restrictions, rallying citizens in one of the most serious crises in modern times.
In terms of race, religion, and social mores, Mr. Lee has also had to navigate an ever-evolving electorate. After years of tussle among various social classes and activists, Section 377A, a colonial-era law that prohibited gay sex, was repealed in 2022.