S’pore’s non-resident population growth rate firstly declined in 14 years while the general citizen population rate remained stable.

I refer to the article “Singapore’s non-resident population falls by 1.6%, first drop in 14 years” (Straits Times, Sep 27).

It states that “Singapore’s non-resident population fell by 1.6 per cent to 1.65 million, the first drop in 14 years, mainly due to a decline in Work Permit holders.

With the decrease in non-residents, the total population of Singapore grew by 0.1 per cent to 5.61 million. This is the slowest rate of growth in over a decade.

In contrast, the decade before 2017 saw total population grow by an average of 2.45 per cent per year.

As to “On the whole, the citizen population grew by 0.9 per cent to 3.44 million, due to citizen births and immigration, the report said” – since 20,589 new citizens were granted in 2016, does it mean that the citizen population (excluding new citizens) grew by only about 0.28 per cent, and that immigration accounted for 0.62 (68%) of the overall 0.9 per cent increase?

In respect of “The permanent resident population remained stable, at 527,000” – this means that PRs grew by 0.38 per cent, which is higher than the citizens’ (excluding new citizens) growth of 0.28 per cent.

Leong Sze Hian