Business Idea

Quite some time ago, a reader visited my blog and suggested that one niche business idea could be to provide a service to help foreigners or permanent residents to integrate into Singapore society.

I have mixed feelings when he suggested this to me. While this business idea is potentially niche and may have less competition, it is something which I find it difficult to make money. This is because to be a successful business man, one must have conviction that his product or service would be beneficial to his clients and thus create market demand.

As a born and bred Singaporean, I am not so sure whether this is something which I would want to explore, even if it could bring in tonnes of money. There are definitely much better ways to make money in Singapore.

Sometime I wonder what kind of nation we want to build. Do we want to be a rich nation but with the majority of the population consisting of foreigners? Or do we want to slow down and strengthen the core population? I guess there are always trade-offs in life but as a young nation, we probably need to start to define our identity in the global stage. Otherwise, it is very easy to become a lost. confused nation.

Foreigners or permanent residents come here and compete with our locals for jobs at lower wages without having to serve National Service. As it is, they have created much social stress for the locals. They also compete with our children for schools, crowd our transport system, occupy our hospital beds, take up our scholarships and view Singapore as solely a place to become rich.

I am not sure if there are any plans to calibrate the flow of foreign talents into Singapore but it is important to have a balance. Otherwise, the situation may become unhealthy, especially during market crisis when retrenchments are rampant.

For sure we still need foreign skilled workers to work in areas which Singaporeans avoided (examples like nurses and construction workers). But what about white collar jobs like bankers and investment analysts? These are well-paying jobs which could be filled up by locals but sadly many foreigners seemed to get the jobs.

Henceforth I would never provide a service to help the foreigners or permanent residents integrate into our society. Perhaps there are Singaporeans who are able to do it and make it into a successful business model but definitely not me.

Magically yours,

SG Wealth Builder