Minister for Finance Shanmugaratnam Tharman of Singapore

Picture has been licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution.
Original source: See below.
Author: See below.
Permission: I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license:

Tharman was born in 1957, of Sri Lankan Tamil ancestry.

Tharman is also Co-Chairman of the Singapore-Liaoning Economic and Trade Council (SLETC), which was established in 2003 to advance stronger links between Singapore and Liaoning Province, China.

While serving as economics director in Monetary Authority of Singapore in 1993, Tharman was charged under the Official Secrets Act for inadvertently releasing Singapore's 1992 second-quarter flash projections to a research director Mr Raymond Foo, and economist Manu Bhaskaran, of Crosby Securities and journalists, Kenneth James and Patrick Daniel from the Business Times.

Upon entering politics in 2001, Tharman was appointed Senior Minister of State in the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Education.

In December 2007, Tharman was promoted to Minister for Finance, together with his earlier post of Minister for Education.

In 2002, Tharman was appointed to the Central Executive Committee of the PAP, and is currently its Assistant Treasurer.

Tharman is married to Jane Yumiko Ittogi, a lawyer of Chinese-Japanese parentage.

a b "PM Lee to relinquish Finance Minister post, Tharman takes over" (2007-11-29.

Tharman has spent most of his career in the fields of economic policy and education, first as a professional and subsequently as political office-holder.

Tharman was appointed Acting Minister for Education in Aug 2003, and subsequently confirmed as Minister for Education in Aug 2004.

Tharman has chaired the Singapore-Liaoning Economic and Trade Council (SLETC) together with the Governor of Liaoning Province, since the Council was established in 2003 to promote Singapore’s engagements in Northeast China.

Tharman has been Member of Parliament for Jurong GRC since Oct 2001 when he contested in the General Elections as a candidate of the People’s Action Party (PAP.

SINGAPORE: It is not the government's role to comment on or second-guess whether it was timely for the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and Temasek Holdings to make their recent investments, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said.

Mr Tharman said the Government is amending the Constitutional framework to let it draw on more investment income from its reserves.

Mr Tharman said the Government has released 15 transitional office sites and vacant state properties , which will yield 150,000 sq m of additional office space.

Mr Tharman has kept his powder dry for a rainy day - leaving ample room to lower taxes further were the global economy to weaken substantially more.

Mr Tharman was responding to questions from Non-Constituency MP Sylvia Lim who had asked if statutory boards have invested in risky structured products linked to bankrupt US investment bank Lehman Brothers.

On Mr Siew's query, Mr Tharman said a fifth statutory board - which he did not identify - has financial products other than credit-linked notes, which are linked to CDOs and CDSs.

Tharman is a trained economist and former central bank managing director.

PM Lee to relinquish Finance Minister post, Tharman takes over.

By that, Mr Tharman had a job well done - of saying something needless to say.

to pick up tips on starting their own business.

Singapore is not heading towards a recession.

Presenting this year's Budget in the House today, Mr Tharman said the tax cut would bring more investments into Singapore.