SINGAPORE — His first two key tasks as finance minister would be to work with economic agencies, companies and unions to create a vibrant economy even amid a slowdown, as well as to stocktake key changes in the global economy and challenges, said Mr Heng Swee Keat at his first event in his new role.

Speaking to reporters after his tour of tech startup hub Launchpad, he said: ”there were two key tasks at the finance ministry, the first is for me to work closely with economic agencies, companies and unions to see how we can continue to create a vibrant economy, even in the midst of the global slowdown, because that is how we can create more opportunities for people, for good jobs, for new businesses. With a growing economy, we can then generate resources to invest in our future.”

“We need to do an assessment now to see what are the key changes in the global economy, regional economy and our domestic economy, what are the challenges we have, where we are today, what are they key things we need to do going forward. We will do the stocktake as the first major task.”

On the new panel being set up to chart the future economy, Mr Heng said one theme to take into consideration is that economic cycles were getting shorter. He added that two challenges Singapore faced were the slowing influx of manpower and an ageing population.