INVESTMENt
Ben Bernanke, Ng Kok Song and Gordon Brown
Ng Kok Song spent 45 years of his life building up and investing Singapore’s reserves. This puts him in a strong position to be a trusted guardian of the nation’s reserves.
“I helped build the reserves. Naturally, I will do my utmost to ensure those reserves are wisely managed and used for our future,” he said.
Ng Kok Song helped set the foundations for an international financial centre through the founding of SIMEX to the founding of the WMI (Wealth Management Institute) catapulting Singapore into being not only the 2-3 largest global foreign exchange market in the world, but as a serious financial centre.
"The MAS’ credibility was founded in its early years. I want to mention the leaders and staff who were involved in putting in placed these foundations of today’s credibility. Mr Hon Sui Sen in particular, our first Chairman (1971-1980), Mr Michael Wong Pak-Shong, who was the Managing Director, and the staff at that time, including Ng Kok Song, Mrs Ong-Ang Ai Boon, Mrs Elizabeth Sam. Together they built an organisation, bringing together no fewer than nine different offices and functions in Government at the time, melding them together in one organisation. They also set the foundations for an international financial centre. Singapore was not a serious financial centre until then. Mr Hon Sui Sen and his team built the foundation for a financial centre that went beyond Singapore.", said Former DPM Tharman Shanmugaratnam on 16 Feb 2016
"He was a key person, almost an institution, in GIC. He could have done well for himself elsewhere, but chose to stay in GIC because he found meaning and satisfaction in working for the nation, for a greater cause than a typical bank or fund manager." said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong
"I was fortunate in the team, who came from the Ministry of Finance, who were dealing with various aspects of central banking. For example, exchange control was run by a fairly junior officer, economics by others, and Ng Kok Song, who has been a very important figure in the foundation of the GIC (Government of Singapore Investment Corporation Private Limited), was also one who was with us.", said Michael Wong Pakshong, first Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore
“Mr Ng Kok Song, founding Chairman of SIMEX, spearheaded the historic Mutual Offset System with Chicago Mercantile Exchange “CME” in 1984. This is one of (the) earliest and most successful exchange linkages in the history of the derivatives industry, and remains widely used today.”, as Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of Monetary Authority of Singapore at SGX’s SIMEX Hall of Fame on 4 December 2014
