That is because there are good reasons that the fund should not be too transparent, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, who is also GIC's chairman, in a Bloomberg TV interview on Tuesday.

'There have always been these calls for transparency and we have been careful about it. There are reasons why we do not think we should be too transparent,' said Mr Lee.

Firstly, GIC has to guard its portfolio and strategy - otherwise others will anticipate its moves.

'No company likes to have its moves anticipated. If you make your moves very clear, people can predict what you will do next, and forestall you or pre-empt you,' he said.

Secondly, being too transparent may raise people's expectations for the Government to spend GIC's returns.

'You raise expectations of your own people, and they say: 'Let's spend it. We've made 8 per cent last year - why are we keeping 4 per cent? Let's spend 6 per cent instead of 4 per cent.' And so on,' said Mr Lee.

'These are populist pressures which we have to buffer.'

In order to avoid such pressures, GIC also chose to disclose its profits and losses over a five-year or 10-year period, rather than year by year as publicly listed companies are required to do.

Mr Lee said: 'If we do it year by year, we will have our ups and downs. Well, if you have good profits, people will say: 'Let's spend.' If you have bad profits, we can't spend this year, they will say: 'Oh, it will hurt.''

'A government has to take the risk and say: 'This is as far as we can go.''

Mr Lee said GIC is being built up 'for the future for all kinds of contingencies, like a major worldwide recession or depression'.

The Government has also laid out guidelines on the spending decisions of GIC.

'We will not spend the capital. We will spend half of our earnings, taken on a five-year basis, not year by year,' Mr Lee said.

His comments come amid calls for more transparency by sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) globally. The SWFs have mushroomed in their scale to hold a total of US$3.5trillion (S$4.8 trillion) last year, according to US research firm Global Insight.

The massive size of SWFs and their investments that include stakes in national icons such as US banking giant Citi have sparked fear among governments across the world that the SWFs' motives may not be entirely commercial.

In Singapore, there have also been calls for GIC to disclose more information about its investment activities, like Temasek Holdings, the other Singapore investment fund, has already done.

Temasek has been releasing an annual report with its total shareholder returns as well as details of its portfolio and some major investments over the past few years.

Still, the GIC may take some steps to lift the veil on its investment activities.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told the media in January on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos that GIC had previously been 'much more circumspect about disclosure'.

'But going forward we've decided to (do) more,' he said.

graceng@sph.com.sg

GIC OPEN TO BUYING MORE QUALITY BANK ASSETS: MM LEE, MONEY