Significant growth of Singapore’s reserves

·        Both GIC and Temasek have made significant gains over time, not lost money:

During the 2008–09 global crisis, GIC and Temasek had significant falls in values of their portfolios -   like most other major investors. Their falls were less than the decline in the markets. 

However, GIC and Temasek had made much larger gains in the years before the crisis.  Hence, even during the crisis,  their portfolio values remained much larger than what they were even 5 years earlier.

Further, following the crisis, both GIC and Temasek have  recovered their pre-crisis peak levels. They have done creditably relative to comparable market indices since the crisis.

All the information above has been stated publicly,  in replies by the Minister for Finance to Parliamentary Questions, and in the Budget debates of 2009 and 2011.

·        Fundamentally, the relevant timeframe to consider the performance of GIC and Temasek is over the long term, and for their overall portfolios rather than for individual investments.

Every serious long term investor makes gains on some investments and losses on others. The way to assess their performance is to look at the long term record on their overall investments.

GIC and Temasek have done respectably over the long term, resulting in significant growth of Singapore’s reserves.