THe problem is national strategy. The *** was eager for high rates of progress to show its worth. The "stable, law and order with cheap labor" strategy worked in the 70s-90s, but it should have realised by the late 90s that this was not a viable solution, but it persisted on with this strategy into the 2000s. I have no doubt that some people in MTI will claim and show why this will work and still work and whatever not because of their "secret data", but the problem has to be dealt with, and how it is being dealt with is sadly not enough. Productivity can only be achieved with high quality economic activities and not just by merely "restricting the intake of cheap workers" in hope that would solve the problem. The United States has the highest productivity in the world simply because of the quality of the economic activity. This does not hold true for Singapore.
But I know there are people in the Government who either have 1. Given up hope for this, or 2. have psyched themselves into thinking this is the best possible solution. Every policy since the 90s has been a patch work of attempts to "grow" Singapore's economy and most have failed. Claims to be the "Silicon Valley of the East" have failed and were the stuff of hubris. Doing Business in Singapore is expensive because our geographical location is both a curse and blessing. The curse has unfortunately started to bite. Now the question is how to counteract this curse.