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SINGAPORE : Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said on Wednesday too much attention has been paid to the social aspect of this year's budget and not enough on the economic side.
Speaking to about 300 grassroots leaders in a dialogue session at Kembangan Community Club, Mr Goh told his audience not to focus on what the budget does not address because it is simply not possible to tackle every issue through the budget.
This dialogue session was an opportunity for Mr Goh and his fellow Members of Parliament from Marine Parade GRC to gather feedback and comments from grassroots leaders.
The Senior Minister said: "How do you evaluate the budget? The budget is a forward-looking document, it is not a backward historical document where you capture past policies and past accounts and so on. When you look at the budget, you have to assess the impact on the economy, that's the primary purpose of the budget.
"Would the budget help to expand the economy? Will it be a contractionary budget? It might be a year of too rapid growth, too high inflation and the budget sometimes will have to contract, say the money supply in the economy. Will it address your problems in the next one to two years?"
Senior Minister Goh believes this year's budget should be judged on several criteria, first of which is will it help the economy grow in the long term and make Singapore competitive.
Without economic growth, he said there is not much to talk about giving help to the needy in the first place. - CNA/ch
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