WPQs 16 July 2007: Permanent Residency in Singapore and Singapore Citizenship

I've previously posted about being fobbed off when asking for statistics on PRs and citizens. So in July, I tried again. As is evident from the following, I was fobbed off again. It really bothered me, because I very strongly feel that the executive has to be accountable to Parliament, especially in a system like ours that is so strongly dominated by one party. I won't go into just how upset I was, suffice to say I spent a lot of time in a bit of a funk questioning why I bothered doing this. (Which is why the positive comments left in response to some posts during that period meant so much to me.)

But that passed, I got my energy back, and I'm trying again this month. And if I fail this time, that's OK. I've still got 2 years to go.

WPQ #1

PERMANENT RESIDENCY IN SINGAPORE
(Figures)

Mr Siew Kum Hong: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs in 2006, how many Malaysian, Indonesian, People’s Republic of China and Indian nationals were granted permanent residency in Singapore.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: In 2006, about 57,000 persons were granted permanent residency status in Singapore. These new permanent residents (PRs) came predominantly from Asian and South-East Asian countries. We also get immigrants from diverse places such as the Americas, Oceania and Europe (please see table below).

Table: PR granted by region in 2006

Nationality	Granted PR in 2006	Percentage
South East Asian Countries	27,543	48.1%
Other Asian Countries	26,125	45.6%
Others	3,642	6.3%
Total	57,310	100.0%

WPQ #2

SINGAPORE CITIZENSHIP
(Figures)

Mr Siew Kum Hong: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs in 2006 (a) how many of the foreign nationals who became Singapore citizens were then Malaysian, Indonesian, People’s Republic of China or Indian nationals; and (b) of these persons, how many were then Singapore permanent residents.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: In 2006, about 13,000 persons were granted Singapore Citizenship (SC). These new SCs came predominantly from Asian and South-East Asian countries (please see table below). Out of these new citizens, about 73% were PRs when they were granted citizenship. The rest of the new citizens were minors who do not need to obtain PR status first in order to be eligible for citizenship under the Constitution.

Table: SC granted by region in 2006

Nationality	Granted SC	PR when granted SC	Percentage of new citizens who were then PRs
South East Asian Countries	5,372	3,812	71.0%
Other Asian Countries	6,622	5,567	84.1%
Others	1,215	255	21.0%
Total	13,209	9,634	72.9%