Singapore Perspectives 2018 "Together" — Opening Remarks

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) held its annual flagship Singapore Perspectives (SP) conference on 22 January 2018. The theme of SP2018 was “Together” and it considered Singapore’s demographic challenges and opportunities as a global city-state without natural resources. Kicking off SP2018, IPS Director Janadas Devan framed the demographic scenarios to be discussed in the conference in the context of Singapore being a city-state. Noting the bifurcation of Singapore’s identity between the global and the local, he cautioned against the possibility of emerging divisions in Singapore, along age, class, or racial lines and emphasied the role of politics and policy in keeping us together.