Government Securities

5.09 pm

The Second Minister for Finance (Mr Lawrence Wong): Madam, I beg to move, "That this Parliament, in accordance with Article 144(1)(a) of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore and Section 11(1) of the Government Securities Act (Chapter 121A of the 2014 Revised Edition), resolves that the Minister for Finance be authorised to borrow, by the issue of Government Securities in Singapore under that Act, a further sum not exceeding Two Hundred and Seventy Thousand Million Singapore Dollars (S$270,000,000,000), thereby in total a sum not exceeding Nine Hundred and Sixty Thousand Million Singapore Dollars (S$960,000,000,000)."

I will also move a separate Motion to increase the borrowing limit under the Local Treasury Bills Act. Madam, may I therefore propose, with your permission, that the substantive debate on both Motions takes place now.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Yes.

Mr Lawrence Wong: I would invite Members to express their views or raise questions on both Motions during the debate. We will still move and take the Treasury Bills motion separately to ensure that the procedural requirements are dealt with. However, this proposal to have the substantive debate for both Motions taking place now, will allow the substantive arguments to be captured cogently in a single debate.

Let me explain why there is a need to increase both borrowing limits.

Madam, the Government Securities Act (GSA) authorises the issuance of Government Securities in Singapore. These securities are issued not for Government spending. They are to fulfil other purposes. Specifically, the Singapore Government Securities (SGS) are issued to develop the domestic debt market and provide financial institutions with high quality liquid assets to meet regulatory requirements; the Special Singapore Government Securities (SSGS) are non-tradable bonds issued primarily to meet the investment needs of the Central Provident Fund (CPF); and the Singapore Savings Bonds (SSB) are issued to provide individual investors with a long-term savings option.

Separately, the Local Treasury Bills Act (LTBA) authorises the issuance of Treasury Bills, to develop the domestic short-term debt market and to meet market demand for short-term rated Singapore Government debt securities.

Madam, let me emphasise again that these borrowings under both the GSA and the LTBA are invested, and do not increase the amount available for Government spending. So, the increases in the respective borrowing limits do not improve the Government's fiscal position.

Both the GSA and the LTBA provide for limits on the amounts that can be borrowed through the issuance of Government Securities and Treasury Bills respectively. These limits are authorised by Parliament.

For the GSA, the last increase for the issuance limit took place in 2016, when Parliament approved the increase of the Government's issuance limit from S$490 billion to S$690 billion. Currently, the outstanding amount of securities issued under the GSA is S$642 billion.

For the LTBA, the last increase for the issuance limit took place in 2007, when Parliament approved the increase of the Government's issuance limit from S$30 billion to $60 billion. Currently, the outstanding amount of securities issued under the LTBA is S$60 billion.

So, the Government has fully utilised the prevailing LTBA limit, and we expect to utilise the prevailing GSA limit before mid this year. There is therefore a need to raise these limits, to cater to the growth in demand for Government Securities and Treasury Bills expected over the next five years.

Under the GSA, we project that the outstanding amount of securities will reach S$960 billion by the end of 2025. About 74% of this increase is expected to be issued to the CPF as SSGS. In other words, we issue this to CPF as Special Singapore Government Securities (SSGS) to meet its investment needs. The coupon rates which the SSGS earn for the CPF Board match the interest rates that CPF members receive. We expect CPF balances to increase due to growth in the resident labour force and wages. For example, the resident labour force grew by an average of 1% per year from 2015 to 2020. Over the same period, nominal median gross monthly income from work of full-time employed residents grew by 2.8% per year. Upcoming CPF policy enhancements, like the higher CPF contribution rates for older workers will also increase CPF's investment needs in the coming years. So, that is for the 74%

The remaining 26% of the increase under the GSA will be for the issuance of SGS. This is to support the continued development of a vibrant SGS market, that serves as an anchor for the growth of corporate debt market, and to meet the increased demand for high quality liquid assets from financial institutions in tandem with the growth of our financial markets.

Like SGS, we have seen an increase in demand for Treasury Bills from investors. These are shorter in tenure. Issuing more Treasury Bills will help meet market demand for high quality short-term Singapore dollar denominated papers.

We will continue to monitor the market demand for both Government Securities and Treasury Bills and will increase the rate of issuance to meet this demand, if necessary.

The Government will also put in place a new short-term cash management tool, where Treasury Bills can be issued on an ad-hoc basis to meet temporary cashflow mismatches. The Government strives to maintain a healthy level of Government Deposits with MAS and has a variety of cashflow sources like tax revenue and land sales to meet our liquidity needs for day-to-day operations. The introduction of this new tool is part of the Government's on-going efforts to expand our cash management toolkit and will provide more operational flexibility to raise cash quickly, should any short-term cashflow mismatches occur in future.

Issuing ad-hoc short-term bills for cash management is not a new concept, as countries from around the world like Sweden have similar cash management bills programme to meet their governments' temporary cashflow mismatches.

Such temporary cashflow mismatches may occur from time to time as we seek to optimise the Government's treasury and liquidity management and minimise the excess cash holdings in the Government's balance sheet. Cashflow mismatches can occur when there are unanticipated delays in cash inflow, which may coincide with an earlier-than-expected cash outflow. When this occurs, we would address this by tapping on our liquidity buffers. It is, therefore, important for the Government to have diversified sources of liquidity for better risk management, and the ability to issue ad-hoc Treasury Bills when needed would provide the Government with greater operational flexibility to manage our liquidity needs.

To distinguish this from the regular Treasury Bills, the ad-hoc Treasury Bills will be called "Cash Management Treasury Bills", or CMTB in short. The tenure of CMTB will be tailored to meet the period of need and will be less than six months as it will be issued solely for short-term cashflow management.

I should emphasise that issuing CMTB will only expand our cash management toolkit. Again, it does not increase our fiscal budget available for spending.

The maximum size of the CMTB is envisaged to be no larger than S$10 billion, which has been accounted for under the proposed increase in the LTBA borrowing limit.

The increases in the borrowing limits are for specific market development and operational needs purposes and not to cover the Government's fiscal shortfall. Any increase in the Government borrowings under the GSA and LTBA will correspondingly increase the Government's cash and liabilities but will not increase the Government's fiscal budget for spending.

For the present Motion, I propose to raise the ceiling for issuing Government Securities under the Government Securities Act by S$270 billion to S$960 billion. The proposed limit of S$960 billion will apply to the outstanding amount of Government Securities and is expected to last for five years till 2025. Madam, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Liang Eng Hwa.

5.18 pm

Mr Liang Eng Hwa (Bukit Panjang): Mdm Deputy Speaker, first and foremost, I wish to declare my interest that I work in a financial institution which does trade and transact in securities, including Government Securities.

Madam, unlike many countries around the world, Government Securities issued by the Singapore Government cannot be used to fund Budget spending. Under the Government Securities Act, these borrowings can only be used for investments and the proceeds are safeguarded in the Government Securities Fund.

This is to ensure that the government of the day operate on a balanced budget basis, funding its expenditures with revenues received during the term of Government, which would also include the Net Investment Returns. This instills discipline and fiscal prudence. If the current Government runs into an end-of-term deficit, it has to either cut spending, increase revenue by raising taxes or seek consent from the President to draw on past reserves.

Why then does the Government need to issue Government Securities and Treasury Bills, other than the Special SGS and Saving Bonds?

As I can hear from the Second Minister for Finance, the primary purpose is to help develop the domestic debt capital markets where, among the necessary ingredients, is to have a domestic risk-free Singapore dollar bond yield curve so that the other institutional and corporate debt issuers can benchmark upon to price their cost of borrowings.

Having a tradable and liquid bond market – both SGS and Treasury Bills – is also key to strengthening Singapore's position as a premier financial centre as it draws in institutional investors and other eco-system players into the Singapore markets.

It also enables banks and institutional players to use the Government Securities as collaterals to manage their balance sheets as well as facilitate the development and growth of repurchase agreements and derivative products.

Notwithstanding, it is also important to periodically review and restate our policy position on the purpose and the use of Government Securities – whether it still remains relevant in the evolving landscape. So, I have a few questions for the Minister.

Firstly, can I ask the Minister as to how the Government decides when to issue the securities, what amount and which tenure? We know that this issuance and the funds raised are unrelated to the country's fiscal position. So, what are the basis and the considerations for lifting the debt issuance ceilings? Why are debt issuances by Government Statutory Boards not covered under the overall borrowing limits in this Act?

Secondly, as the proceeds from these issuances would need to be invested, how would the Government balance between investment risks versus taking advantage of the low interest cost due our AAA sovereign rating to issue more debt? Also, given the flushed liquidity situation and increasingly more investible dollars chasing for limited quality investments, would our investment agencies like GIC and Temasek be able to find investment opportunities with acceptable risk-return trade-offs?

Thirdly, given our challenging fiscal position in the years ahead and that the Government is contemplating using borrowings to fund very large and long-term infrastructure projects, would the Government be considering using a certain portion of the SGS to finance such projects? I think it is important to ascertain that again.

Would the Government also consider newer variations of issuances, such infrastructure bonds, green bonds or social bonds, for special purpose funding?

My final question relates to the negative interest rates that we have seen around the world. Many developed economies and their government securities are currently experiencing interest rates in negative territory. I would like to ask the Minister what would be the implications for Singapore if our Government Securities also yield negative interest rates and what would be the impact on savings in Singapore?

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.

5.22 pm

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim (Sengkang): Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker and Minister. I recognise that these two Motions constitute a fairly narrow exercise of the Government Securities Act and the Treasury Bills Act for the purposes of raising the debt ceiling. I am also aware that this is a fairly routine procedure, which is for the purposes of funding CPF as well as for raising liquidity needs in response to the growth of Singapore's capital markets. I just wish to add two thoughts: one is to request some clarifications over the underlying assumptions behind the amount requested and, second, I would like to query whether this is a good time to actually be borrowing more.

For starters, I would like to ask for some clarification over the underlying assumptions that support the specific figure of $270 billion. In particular, what were the projections for GDP growth numbers that were used to derive this increase in the debt ceiling? Did this take into account the changed economic conditions relative to what has recently transpired? I am requesting this clarification because I believe that there is actually substantial uncertainty over the way that the economy will subsequently evolve over the next few years.

If the economy does eventually bounce back strongly – much like how it did following the SARS epidemic or even the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis – then, a ceiling premised on a more pessimistic growth trajectory may turn out to be excessively generous. In contrast, if the recession proves to be more drawn out – akin to the aftermath of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis – then, this amount of borrowing may turn out to be insufficient to even meet routine needs, necessitating yet another round of requests to raise the ceiling.

But if you would indulge me and allow me to take a further step and pose the question very much in the spirit of the Bill – is this a good time to borrow, and why? I have previously shared with this House that governments operate on very different budget constraints and time horizons from that of a typical household. Accordingly, it is misleading to think of government indebtedness in the same manner as liabilities accrued either by a private firm or a household.

In particular, because governments operate essentially on an infinite time horizon and they possess the unique ability to finance their expenditures with money creation, the usual concerns faced by private actors over short-term illiquidity do not generally apply. It is, therefore, not only sound economics but, in fact, a fiduciary responsibility for our Government to consider whether debt finance fiscal policy might actually offer a superior value proposition to either drawing down on reserves or strict adherence to a reserves replenishment schedule.

As context, it is useful to consider the evolution of two key drivers of borrowing costs as the other Member has mentioned – the inflation rate and the interest rate.

Inflation has remained very contained virtually everywhere. In advanced economies, expectations of future inflation are very well anchored. Taken together, there is very little indication that prices are likely to move sharply in the deflationary or inflationary direction, providing a substantial degree of certainty for the future macro-economic environment.

Interest rates have also remained very low worldwide. This limits the room for traditional monetary policy to operate since further reductions are constrained by the zero lower bound.

Furthermore, in countries where rates are close to zero, positive inflation means that borrowing costs in real terms are negative. This means that the costs of borrowing are no longer prohibitive and, perhaps, the more pertinent question is not so much whether we should incur more public debt or even how much public debt is on the books but whether in this environment of low interest rates and deficient demand, prudent fiscal spending is required to take the place of otherwise independent impotent monetary policy.

Indeed, the case can even be made, and has been made, for how incurring additional debt may counter-intuitively improve national welfare.

How would we ensure that fiscal spending, then, is wise? For starters, we should be willing to spend now when the economy remains weak and can benefit the most from additional stimulus from Government expenditures.

As the Minister has shared, the securities under this Act are not to be used to finance expenditure. So, the question then, is – why not?

Such expenditures typically offer the most bang for the buck – when the Government spends specifically on investment in public goods, such as new educational retraining programmes or infrastructural needs, as opposed to funding Government consumption. Hence, when spending on replacing lost income was crucial in the early stages of the pandemic recession and remains important for vulnerable groups now, such as those in Tier-1 and Tier-2 sectors, there should also be a clear transition plan away from purely supporting consumption to an investment, especially, if I may suggest, in human capital.

Of course, this general fact has not escaped the Government, which has sought, among other efforts, to increase SkillsFuture re-skilling programmes or by remaining committed to plans for expanding the MRT lines.

But I would emphasise here the importance that these programmes are themselves efficiently targeted. For example, there should be a clear understanding of the extent to which SkillsFuture trainees subsequently secure jobs in the new industries that they have been retrained for. As another example, infrastructural work on domestically oriented infrastructure projects, such as MRT lines, should take priority over those that enhance purely international connectivity, such as the new airport terminal.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, in light of what I have shared, it should, therefore, come as no surprise that I assert my support for both of these Motions.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Leong Mun Wai.

5.30 pm

Mr Leong Mun Wai (Non-Constituency Member): Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the Motion. Beyond the current borrowing limits, I also urge the Government to expand its financial management tools while keeping tight fiscal discipline to achieve better financial efficiency.

The current round of $270 billion and $45 billion limit increases for Government Securities and Treasury Bills respectively will bring the combined borrowing limit to $1.065 trillion. However, as the Minister has said, these borrowings are actually not spent but managed and re-invested by the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Our Government does not need the funds because it has been running Budget surpluses since 1968, except for a few years. The surpluses are attributed to profitable land sales, steady economic growth, high domestic savings through the CPF scheme and seigniorage from the Singapore dollar. As a result, we have accumulated $1.35 trillion of financial assets as of March 2020; and with our financial assets way in excess of our liabilities, our country enjoys the Triple A Sovereign Credit Rating.

As the Minister has also said, the issuance of Government Securities is actually for the development of the local bond and money markets, and for providing a safe investment instrument for the CPF funds. As of March 2020, about $136 billion of Government Securities is held by the public, of mainly Singaporeans and local financial institutions and $433 billion held by the CPF Board.

I note that in Budget 2019, the Government has announced that it would study the option of using Government debt as part of the financing mix for long-term infrastructure projects that the Government would be taking on directly.

In line with that, I ask whether the Government will consider to institutionalise a new borrowing limit which may be called the Development and Contingency Limit (DC Limit) to give more flexibility in fiscal management and to take advantage of the historically low interest rates. This DC Limit should be separate from the current borrowing limits.

Using debt prudently yields many advantages. First, debt, in itself, is good for instilling financial discipline. It is a well-researched fact that cash-rich companies perform badly in terms of financial efficiency and the same arguably applies to the management of a country’s finances. Injecting debt into our public projects will improve financial efficiency and, more importantly, transparency and accountability.

Secondly, when there is a need to make huge unforeseen spending like the drawdown to fight the COVID-19, it is better to allow for some “bridge financing” through the issuance of Government Securities so as not to disrupt the investment process of GIC.

For example, to draw down $52 billion in a short period of time may mean that GIC needs to liquidate some of its investments at unfavourable prices. On the other hand, not tapping GIC may allow it to realise an investment return higher than our borrowing cost, which gives us additional financial benefits.

Needless to say, before we deploy more debt, we should ensure that all the cash in the public sector are properly managed in the first place. I noted that the Government has already put in place the Centralised Liquidity Management scheme in November 2009 to centrally manage the cash of all Statutory Boards and Ministries and the weighted average yield from the scheme for the year ended 31 March 2020 was 1.93% per annum.

So, my next question is whether the Government will go one step further and soak up the “excess cash” of the Statutory Boards and deploy the cash to longer term investments to yield a higher return.

Excess cash is defined as cash over and above what is required to run the operations of the Statutory Boards. As of March 2020, my estimate of the excess cash held by the Statutory Boards totalled about $50 billion. This is not currently included in our national reserves.

I would also like to ask whether the Government will be tightening up the budgeting process a little more. The Government currently employs a block-budgeting process where the whole budget is allocated to the Ministries in blocks, with the quantum increasing every year in line with GDP growth. Each Ministry then uses its discretion to re-allocate the “block” to its individual projects and uses.

A zero-based budgeting process should be adopted instead whereby each project is re-evaluated every year by MOF. Projects which have outlived their usefulness should be closed or scaled down promptly. On-going projects after reaching maturity should reduce their spending gradually every year to reinforce the importance of achieving efficiency gains. These practices are common in the private sector and can also be adopted in the public sector.

Lastly, I would like to ask whether the Government will look at increasing taxes to further boost our financial standing. However, for the global capital markets, we should not give the impression that the GST is the only source.

In the past, the Government has taken many conscious decisions to do away with many taxes, especially those related to the progressive tax regime. For example, when GST was introduced in 1994, the Government started to reduce personal income tax and corporate income tax from 30% to 20% by 2007.

The Government abolished estate duty in 2008 and, at the same time, took out tax on interest income, in addition to the absence of capital gains tax and other forms of wealth taxes.

There are also no additional taxes on foreigners although they do not need to contribute to CPF or pay premiums to the MediShield and CareShield schemes.

In conclusion, I urge the Government to make use of the COVID-19 recovery year of 2021 as a starting point to review our fiscal policies, strategies and processes, to achieve greater financial efficiency for building a stronger financial foundation for the future.

If the Government believes that we are in a new normal, then old policies and extension of them will no longer be the answer of the future.

I have thus made several recommendations or ask various questions on how to make use of debt prudently, tighten up budget allocation to increase financial discipline and reintroduce multiple tax collection avenues to boost our financial standing which I hope the Government will reconsider in totality. Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the Motion.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Minister Lawrence Wong.

5.40 pm

Mr Lawrence Wong: Mdm Deputy Speaker, I thank the speakers and Members for their support of the Motion. You know, there is a time and season for everything under the sun. Members have raised many issues that are outside the scope of these two Acts and the Motions that I have raised. But I will try, nevertheless, to address some of the points that are raised.

I think Assoc Prof Jamus Lim gave us an economics tutorial on the virtues of using debt financing, and Mr Leong Mun Wai also agreed with the merits of using debt financing. I am in complete agreement with the broader points that are raised, that there is scope for debt financing in Singapore. And that is why we have said that we are studying very carefully the use of borrowing for long-term major infrastructure projects. So, that is coming. But that is not the scope of today's Motions. We will have a full presentation on the Government's plans when we are ready and we can have a full debate on the extent to which debt financing is used, the limits for such borrowing and the scope of such borrowing. So, we will do that in due course.

Mr Leong asked about Statutory Boards having excess cash. We are very mindful of the cash that is in Statutory Boards. That is why we have put in place a framework to look at centralised management of liquidity across the whole-of-Government. So, from time to time, very regularly, we will discuss with the Statutory Boards if, indeed, they do not have specific plans for use of these reserves, we may very well and we have in the past swept back the reserves into the Government funds. So, that has happened and we will continue to do that. The point that Mr Leong raised is a valid one. We will continue to do so.

Mr Leong also asked about Budget processes. It is an area close to my heart. I started my career in the Civil Service as a Budget Officer. I know all about zero-based budgeting. We do that. We do that. So, we have a framework of block budgets. Yes. That is to give certainty and assurance to Ministries for spending and for planning. But from time to time, we go in and we review Ministries' projects, Ministries' spending and we take a zero-based approach to make sure that there is value for money in Government spending.

Finally, Mr Leong suggested increase in taxes. Excellent! We fully support that. And when the Government were to put up proposals for increase in taxes, please, we would certainly hope that the opposition Members of this House would also support us in making these moves in order to strengthen our fiscal position. And I assure you, each time we make such a proposal, we will want our taxation system to be progressive. It is already a very progressive system, in fact. We have highlighted this many times in this House. We have said that for every tax dollar that a person pays, if he is lower income, he gets $4 in benefits, a ratio of one to four. Whereas, if you are higher income, for every tax dollar you pay, you get much less in benefits. It is already a very progressive system. Even in the way we do GST, we have introduced elements of progressivity because we have a permanent GST Voucher which we give back to the lower income. So, the whole basis of our taxation system is designed to be fair, to be progressive, to enable us to move towards a fairer and more equal society. So, we are in complete agreement in moving in that direction.

Next, there were some questions raised about assumptions. Assoc Prof Jamus Lim asked about the assumptions behind the increase of the debt ceilings and I think Mr Liang Eng Hwa asked the same question.

These debt ceilings for the Singapore Government Securities, SGS and Treasury Bills are raised periodically. I think Members have highlighted, it is almost like a routine exercise. The reason why we do this every four or five years is twofold. The purposes of raising the debt ceiling and to issue bonds, SGS or SSGS are twofold. Number one, to develop the domestic bond market; and number two, to meet the investment needs of the CPF and the CPF members.

So, why are we doing this? Number one, CPF needs are growing and I have highlighted, almost 75% of the increase in the proposed limits will be issued for SSGS, for CPF needs. What are the assumptions behind CPF members' needs growing? It is not really about GDP. It is linked to resident workforce growth, CPF contribution rates. These are quite predictable and the needs are growing and therefore, we need to cater for it. And I said, the significant part of the increase will be put for SSGS purposes, which means for the needs of CPF and CPF members.

The second area is to develop the domestic bond market. Here, it is not so much about the overall economic condition, but it is about the demand for high-quality assets from financial institutions in tandem with the development of our financial markets. We get that assessment from MAS, they tell us that there is strong demand, continued demand. In fact, even in this period, there is continued strong demand for high-quality safe assets. And SGS and Treasury Bills are safe assets. So, financial institutions have demand for these assets. We have reached the limits and therefore we are also providing for an increase in the GSA and in the LTBA to provide to issue more SGS and the shorter term Treasury Bills. So, that is the basis for raising the debt limits.

I think Mr Liang asked, how about that debt issuances by the Statutory Boards. That is quite separate from sovereign debt. Statutory Boards are separate legal entities from the Government. The provisions, the safeguards for the issuance of debt by Statutory Boards are governed in their respective legislation. But, for sovereign debt, SGS, Singapore Government Securities, Treasury Bills, we have the two Acts that we are referring to today – the Government Securities Act and the Local Treasury Bills Act; and the limits for issuance of debt under these two Acts are set out in the Act and authorised by Parliament. From time to time, when we need to increase, we come back to Parliament and we seek Parliament's endorsement for an increase in these limits.

Let me see which other questions. Mr Liang asked about borrowing cost and whether we can ensure that we are able to invest well enough to pay the debts, debts that we borrow through the Singapore Government Securities; and the answer is yes. Temasek, GIC are long-term investors. They are constantly looking out for long-term investment opportunities and overall, we are able to meet our debt servicing cost fully from the returns generated from our investments.

Mr Liang asked about borrowing for infrastructure too. I think similarly, we will address that separately.

He asked also about whether there will be newer variations of issuance like green bonds. That is something we will consider, quite separate from this exercise. So, when we think about borrowing and using debt as fiscal policy for funding of major infrastructure projects, we will study if they are possibilities for different types of issuances like the issuance of green bonds.

Finally, Mr Liang asked about negative interest rates. It is something that we monitor very closely. In Singapore, the context is different because MAS uses an exchange rate policy, so, it is not constrained by zero interest rate like other central banks. Our interest rates in Singapore are determined more by global interest rates, but we monitor this very carefully. I think for now, our situation is such that we expect interest rates to remain low for quite some time until we see a broader upturn in the global economy and a normalisation of monetary policy, we do not expect to enter into negative interest rate territory.

If that were to happen, yes, indeed, there will be impact on both borrowers and savers and we will study very carefully should such a contingency arise, what sort of mitigating measures we can put in place. But, for now, our baseline, or based on what we are looking at, I do not think we are entering a negative interest rate environment, but we do expect interest rates to remain low for a while, which as Assoc Prof Jamus Lim said, gives rise to the motivation to think about borrowing for projects. And like I said, that is something we are studying carefully and we will come back to this house with a fuller presentation when we are ready and have a fuller debate on it. Mdm Deputy Speaker, I think I have addressed all the questions and I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

"That this Parliament, in accordance with Article 144(1)(a) of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore and section 11(1) of the Government Securities Act (Chapter 121A of the 2014 Revised Edition), resolves that the Minister for Finance be authorised to borrow, by the issue of Government Securities in Singapore under that Act, a further sum not exceeding Two Hundred and Seventy Thousand Million Singapore Dollars (S$270,000,000,000), thereby in total a sum not exceeding Nine Hundred and Sixty Thousand Million Singapore Dollars (S$960,000,000,000)."