About Dr Goh Keng Swee-acheviements

• When Dr Goh Keng Swee was the minister of Finance. He assumed stewardship of Singapore 's economy.

• As a budget deficit of $4 million was forecast that year, Dr Goh Keng Swee introuduced stringent fiscal discipline which including cutting civil service salaries. As a result of these measures, he was able to announce at the end of the year when delivering the budget that the Government had achieved a surplus of $1 million.

• Dr Goh Keng Swee initiated the setting up of the Economic Developement board, which was established in August 1961 to attract foreign multinational corporations to invest in Singapore.

• In 1962, Dr Goh Keng Swee started the development of the Jurong industrial estate on the western end of the island which was then a swamp, offering incentives to local and foreign business to locate there.

• There was a clash of fundamental principles, both political and economic, notably on the issue of Malay dominance. Communitarian violence in 1964 was inflamed in Singapore by Malay and Chinese activists. At that time, Dr Goh Keng Swee fought to protect Singapore's interests against the Federal Minister of Finance, his cousin Tan Siew Tin, "who was out to spite Singapore".

• Dr Goh Keng Swee played a crucial role in orchestrating the subsequent secession of Singapore from the Federation on 9 August 1965.

• In 1967, Mr Lee asked him to negotiate with the Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Tun Adbul Razak and Minister for External Affairs.However, following the discussions, Goh decided on his own that it would be better for Malaysia and Singapore to have a clean break.He would later claim this was the "best thing that ever happened to Singapore".

• Dr Goh Keng Swee initiated the Compulsory National Service when he was Singapore's first Minister for the Interior and Denfence. It was a mandatory conscription system for able-bodied young males.

• Dr Goh Keng Swee was again Finance Minister between 17 August 1967 and 10 August 1970,during which time he declined to allow the central bank to issue currency, favouring instead a currency board system as this would signal to citizens, academics and the financial world that governments cannot "spend their way to prosperity".

• In 1981, Dr Goh Keng Swee expressed the view that the central bank need not hold large amounts of cash in reserve to defend the currency, proposing that the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation(GIC) be established to invest excess reserves. At the time, it was unprecedented for a non-commodity-based economy to have such a sovereign wealth fund.

• Dr Goh Keng Swee encouraged the establishment of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in1968.

• In1971, Dr Goh Keng Swee put together the Electronic Warfare Study Group, a team of newly graduated engineers who had excelled in their university studies which was headed by Dr. Tay Eng Soon, a university lecturer. The group worked on Project Magpie, a secret project to develop Singapore's defence technology capabilities. In 1977, the group was renamed the Defence Science Organisation (DSO). Originally part of the Ministry of Defence, in 1997 the organization became a non-profit corporation called DSO National Laboratories.

• Dr Goh Keng Swee did projects that sought to improve Singaporeans' cultural and leisure life, such as the Jurong Bird park,the Singapore Zoo and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

• Dr Goh Keng Swee backed the construction of the Kreta Ayer People's Theatre in his constituency as a venue for Chinese opera performances.

• Dr Goh Keng Swee introduced rugby in the Singapore Armed Forces and later in schools.

• Dr Goh Keng Swee contacted the Sentosa Development Corporation and convinced them to have one Underwater World. Underwater World Singapore was opened in 1991.

• On 12 February 1979, Dr Goh Keng Swee moved on from the Defence Ministry to the Ministry of Education. During those time, he set up the Curriculum Development Institute, and introduced key policies such as religious education.

• In 1980, Dr Goh Keng Swee came out with a system, that channelled students into different programmes of study according to their learning abilities. It was known as "streaming".