Thread by @jalilword

I received many DMs asking about my experience overseas. I wanted to share my time in Singapore, where we lived for 7 years. We moved there when my eldest was 6 months old. My second child was born in Singapore.

We were on an Employment Pass for many years before we made the decision to apply for Permanent Residency. About 4 years into our stay in Singapore, I received a letter from the government.

Letter was sent from a government unit. It was a personalised letter addressing my wife & children’s names. It talked about importance of people in Singapore’s nation building.

The letter also assigned me a relationship manager who gave me her contact details if I wanted to know about life in Singapore, assimilation & how I’d like to contribute to community or national development work

My colleagues said it was a cryptic way to encourage me to apply for PR. We were very comfortable in Singapore, it was home and we could see ourselves living there for a long time. We applied for PR.

Application process was easy, but lots of paperwork. Upon submission, I was called for a face-to-face interview 15 months later. The interviewers were very polite and asked me many questions from childhood, family, work. Very detailed. Session lasted 2 hours.

Few weeks later, on Singapore National Day I received an email saying our PR has been approved. Looking back at the process, they really did a lot of work to identify people, and zoom in. I was privileged to have been selected.

I believe my experience is shared by many PR holders in Singapore whom I have spoken to. Many are attracted to Singapore because you’re up against the very best in the industry (I can speak about investment personally). That’s how you become better at what you do. Competition.

There are many things we can learn from Singapore, how to retain talent is one aspect where we trail far behind. This is what will set us apart from the rest of the world; good human capital.

Rather than us debating about attracting Malaysians from abroad, let’s focus on keeping Malaysians from leaving the country first. We know the problems, we know the solutions, what’s left is to implement policies properly.