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(Bloomberg) -- David Chen left his native China as a teenager to attend school in Singapore. Little did he know that his adopted city would help him reach the ranks of the ultra-rich.
The co-founder of Sea Ltd. is now worth $1.3 billion, joining fellow co-founders Forrest Li and Gang Ye among Singapore’s wealthiest individuals. Their company has thrived during the pandemic thanks to the popularity of battle royale mobile game Free Fire and e-commerce platform Shopee.
By far the city-state’s biggest company by market value, Sea didn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of the island’s approach to lure foreign talent at a young age to a market with easy access to capital. Chen and Ye both moved with scholarships for their studies, while Li, who was born and raised in China’s port city of Tianjin, followed his wife to Singapore after finishing an MBA at Stanford University.
“Attracting the right foreign talent is essential to allow progressive development of successful Singapore brands and enterprises,” said Daniel Wong Hwee Boon, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore. “As a small country, it is imperative to not only stay relevant but also ahead. Our next generation will see how other talents are managing around the world.”
Both Chen and Ye arrived in Singapore as teenagers under a government effort to recruit foreign talent through scholarship programs that began in the 1990s. Chen studied computer engineering at the National University of Singapore, while Ye, also originally from China, went to Hwa Chong Institution and Raffles Junior College, and later got bachelor degrees in computer science and economics from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Touchy Subject
The lives of Sea’s three founders are now deeply rooted in Singapore. They’ve all become citizens, and Chief Executive Officer Li is a board member of the Economic Development Board, the government agency charged with promoting growth and positioning the city-state as a global center for business.
With Singapore’s economy now mired in a record slump, the government is pulling several levers -- including attracting foreign talent -- to get it back on track. Immigration policies have become a touchy subject, though, and public spending on scholarships and tuition grants for international students has fallen over the past decade. The ruling People’s Action Party recently dealt with opposition claims that it was attempting to increase the population by boosting the number of foreigners, saying it could result in fewer jobs for locals.