Now, let me say something about enhancing competition. The Government will continue to divest its stakes in GLCs which are non-strategic or have no international potential. We have done our first review of corporate holdings for the Ministries and statutory boards. We have identified about 90 companies that are no longer relevant to the Government. 10 of them have since been divested. This is not counting the 12, which I listed in the Budget Statement, which was done by Temasek. We will divest the rest progressively, subject to the right market conditions. MOF will keep on reminding the Ministries to do so.

As for the major GLCs, divesting them will not help the SMEs. The issue is not how SMEs can compete against the GLCs but rather whether they can hold their own against large companies. Whether or not the GLCs are divested, SMEs will still face the same competition.

The Government will continue to ensure that GLCs are not given unfair advantage. The Competition Law to be enacted next year will provide a level playing field for companies in Singapore. MTI will begin consultations on the draft in the next two to three months.

Mr Sin Boon Ann extols the virtues of competition but, at the same time, he blames excessive competition for over-capacity in the power industry, resulting in Power Seraya retrenching its workers.

Mr Sin's statement could be misleading because as I have said, the power industry is a very complex one. A fairer, still not complete, explanation would go something like this. Technological advancement has led to the emergence of gas plants, which are much cheaper and cleaner to operate than steam plants. This has made our existing steam plants obsolete and expensive. The question is: what should the Government do? If we had done nothing, if we had allowed SingPower to continue to operate as a monopoly, chances are we would have continued with the old technology and just passed on the extra costs to consumers and businesses. Because there is no market test, it is a monopoly, whatever my costs, add the return, mark up, and pass on. But by restructuring the industry and introducing competition, we have forced generating companies to restructure, lower their costs and to adopt the new technology. In the transition period, we will have both steam and gas plants operating, contributing to excess capacity. But prices have come down. Some generating companies are taking a hit but from the point of view of the economy as a whole, we are deriving a benefit, and we are doing the right thing.

May I say in passing that Mr Sin Boon Ann raised many other issues in his speech, many of which I disagree with. But if I respond to all of them, I will have no time to respond to all the other MPs. So let me just say two things.

First, he is wrong on the property market. He talked apocalyptically and glibly about negative equity. But an MAS' study showed that less than 3% of private property owners were in negative equity. Negative equity means owing the bank more than the property is worth. As for HDB owners, the percentage is even lower.

He is also wrong on healthcare, another complicated subject, but just one small example, we only have one gamma knife centre, and not two. I state this so that nobody thinks that because I did not counter Mr Sin's arguments, that means I agree with them.