One Man's View of the World

by Lee Kuan Yew

Q: A recent World Bank report warned that the Chinese economy is headed for a dramatic slowdown unless it makes fundamental changes to its economy. And it highlighted the need to privatise state-owned enterprises. A: It is the less efficient method. The motivation of the managers in state-owned enterprises is not the same. They get directives: Try harder, be more efficient. But whether you’re efficient or not you still get your salary. The change comes about when you are the owner of the property. That’s your total wealth at stake and you’ll stay 24 hours out of 24 on the job. Are they prepared to do that? In Russia they privatised and the oligarchs just took over huge chunks of the economy. Some of them ran them efficiently after that because it was their property.