Singapore needs immigrants to survive

Singapore, which is facing its worst recession in history, needs foreigners to survive in the long-term, founding father Lee Kuan Yew said.
The city-state is not reproducing itself fast enough and the government has in recent years opened its doors to attract more talented migrants to avert a serious population shortage.
"Without new citizens and permanent residents, we are going to be 'The Last of the Mohicans'. We will disappear," Lee, 85, told an audience at a local university late Friday.
Lee is the country's first prime minister and remains an influential figure. He is an adviser in his son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's cabinet with the title minister mentor.
Singapore needs a fertility rate of 2.1 babies per woman to maintain its population naturally but a string of incentives including monetary ones to encourage Singaporeans to have babies has failed to make an impact.
A report released this month by the Department of Statistics showed 39,935 babies were born in 2008, well short of the 60,000 births the country needs each year.