At the Pioneers Series dialogue, a quote that he had used previously was read out to him, much to the amusement of the audience.

'When you become No.1 you say you have arrived,' the former top civil servant had once said.

'Once you arrive, everybody laughs, everybody sits down and fans themselves.

'When people are fanning themselves, congratulating themselves, praising themselves - 'Oh, we have arrived', 'How good we are' - that's when you get the 'arrive and fall' of nations.'

Mr Yeo elaborated on that comment yesterday, a pun on the phrase 'rise and fall of nations'.

RELATED LINKS  Hungry for success

Singapore cannot afford to be complacent or it risks being overtaken by others, he explained.

'We are here today, but we may not be here tomorrow. When I travel around, I always take a look at what's happening in India, in Vietnam...

'We did it, they can do it. We're No.1 today, yes. We've been No.1 for 10 years in a row, yes. But don't forget they are now close, the gap is narrowing.'

And it is not just countries like China and India. The same can be said of the Middle East as well.

'If you go to the Middle East, which I've gone to a few times, the only thing they don't have is hungry people. They're all well-to-do, all well-paid, and they're buying talent,' he said.

'I was watching TV the other day. The leading executive of Emirates airline was saying he's going to increase his fleet to more than 150. He's not a local. He's an Englishman. Many of the flagship companies in the Middle East are led by Englishmen and other people.'

As to how Singapore can keep up, Mr Yeo turned to the word 'hunger', a term he used many times throughout the session.

He said: 'Our people must realise that being No.1 is very temporal.

'We better keep on honing that...Make sure that our young people are hungry. If our young people are not hungry enough, bring in hungrier ones from overseas. Make them feel hungry, increase the hungriness index.'

JEREMY AU YONG