A worried Singapore -Beware

Thursday March 15, 8:17 PM
Singapore can start new cooperative relationship with Malaysia
Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong believes Singapore can start a new cooperative relationship with its closest neighbour Malaysia.
His comments come in the wake of an upbeat assessment of ties with Kuala Lumpur by Foreign Minister George Yeo in Parliament recently.
Mr Goh also stresses that there is a lesson for Singapore from the latest spate of issues concerning the export of sand and granite from Indonesia.
The Senior Minister was speaking to reporters at the end of his visit to Iran on Wednesday.
On Malaysia, Mr Goh said that development plans for the Iskander region in Johor could bring about real cooperation between Malaysia and Singapore.
Singapore would want to cooperate if it is welcome.
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And such cooperation must go on, despite possible ups and downs in future bilateral relations.
SM Goh said: "And we would not be counting who wins more. I think a very dangerous way of cooperating is if we start to count who wins more; is it 'A' who wins more or is it 'B' who wins more in the cooperation? Then there will be no cooperation. Because in any venture, sometimes 'A' benefits a bit more and 'B' benefits a bit less."
Asked about recent reports from Indonesia that it also plans to ban the export of granite to Singapore, Mr Goh said that he hoped there would be some clarity from Jakarta.
He said: "The lesson for us is: never be dependant on any one source for anything, whether it is water, granite, sand. We have to have many sources and sources can be further away and we have to pay the price for sand from far away. I think we pay the higher price. So we just ride over this particular period."

tunku : dont bother about starting a new cooperation goh, you can continue patting on abdullah's back while playing golf and he'll listen to you.after all singapore always gets what they want.don't forget to pats on kodomo lion(syed hamid) too.Actually they are worried about the sand and granite supply. They will have to buy from other country which means more cost.