For subscribers
Ceca is not a four-letter word
Amid Singapore's increasingly complex challenges, the last thing it needs is the non-constructive circularity in the trade pact's debate
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Singapore's ageing workforce and how foreign manpower helps fill essential jobs that are not attractive to locals have been broached by Singapore Business Federation chief executive Lam Yi Young.
ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG
Follow topic:
Depending on who you speak to, Ceca is either a passport to a larger market, a derogatory term for Indian nationals in Singapore, or shorthand for the supposed ills of Singapore's foreign manpower policy.
Despite multiple assurances from the Government that the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (Ceca) does not give Indian job seekers a free pass here, some have latched on to a few areas of the trade pact: intra-corporate transferees, a list of 127 professions in the annex to Chapter 9 on movement of natural persons, and the ability of accompanying spouses or dependants to work here.
