Singapore's economic strategy produced real growth averaging 8.0% from 1960 to 1999.

"I want the base to be small so successful acquisitions can produce meaningful growth," he said.

"But at the same time we are told you must produce growth of 3 or 3.5 percent a year," he said.

Even those that survive are given a severe check and often produce poor growth.

Any company that claims to produce predictable growth - and so many still do - can watch its nose grow.

"This produces growth, and that's what's going to be needed in order to meet the promises that have been made to future retirees."

As a result, business executives and government officials are looking to the increasingly international character of the state's economy to produce growth.

We burned certain fields so that they would produce new growth.

He did not try to defend all the policies that had produced economic growth and financial boom in the 1980's.

The issue has become an urgent one for the news divisions, whose corporate parents are increasingly under pressure to produce financial growth.