Population 6m: Is there room? 7 million ??

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a televised forum in Mandarin that the country can accommodate “6 million or so” people. Any more than that would require careful thinking, he added.

PM Lee gave a similar answer to a question posed by Singapolitics readers.

This is how the exchange went:

Q: PM, the next question is, what is the limit of population size? What is optimal for Singapore?

A: I would be hesitant to say, to produce an optimal number. I think it depends on how Singapore develops, depends on how we expand the land area - we can still reclaim land - depends how we redevelop our city and provide a good quality of life in an urban environment. Our Masterplan is based on 6.5 million but 6.5 million is not a target. It's a possibility which we have mapped out and we know that can be done. So last week, I was asked this. I said, six million plus is no problem. Beyond that, we'll have to study carefully how we can do it. We have to invest in infrastructure. We can invest in infrastructure. We have to rebuild the city, we can do that. You need time but we also need an economy which is prospering because if you don't have a successful economy, even one million people in Singapore will starve.

The population is now 5.31 million. If it grows at 2.5 per cent a year, as it did from June last year to June this year, it will cross the 6 million mark by 2017.

According to Institute of Policy Studies projections, Singapore is likely to cross the 7 million mark before 2040 only if it allows in many more foreigners and lets their share of the population rise from the current one-quarter to one-third.

The Straits Times spoke to six experts about Singapore's population and the likely impact in the areas they know best.