MEDIA RELEASE
More undergrads receive the MTI Economic Awards 

More undergraduates have been awarded the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI)’s Economist Service Awards this year. First given out to students from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2008, the award has now been extended to outstanding Economics students from the Singapore Management University (SMU) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

A total of 6 awards were given out at this year’s award ceremony which was held in conjunction with the MTI Economic Dialogue session 2009 @ SMU. Students from all three universities had the opportunity to actively engage with leading public and private sector economists in a lively panel discussion on the theme, “Economics and Public Policy in Singapore. The panelists included Mr Mathew Welch of ING Wholesale Banking, Mr Yeoh Lam Keong of the Economic Society of Singapore and Dr Yip Chun Seng, Department of Statistics, MTI.

The guest-of-honor at the award ceremony and dialogue session was Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry. Minister Lim presented the MTI (Economist Service) Prize and the MTI (Economist Service) Best Thesis Prize to the top three Economics students and the best Economics thesis from the three universities.

In his keynote address, Minister Lim noted that with the world having just gone through the most severe economic contraction since the Second World War, it was an exciting time to study economics and be an economist. He urged students to “never be blinded by the mathematics, and always keep a healthy scepticism for pristine economic models. Models, with their simplifying assumptions, are not ends in themselves. They are ultimately tools to train us to make good judgments about the real world”.


13 October 2009
Ministry of Trade and Industry