Economic and Social Contributions of Immigrants to Early Singapore

Essay
Contributions of immigrants

When immigrants came down to Singapore, they made contributions to our country. These are some of the contributions that they made
Firstly, the immigrants made some economic contributions.
For the Malays, traders from various parts of the Malay Archipelago brought straits produce from their hometowns to Singapore. They helped to increase Singapore's trade and the variety of goods traded between Singapore and other countries. This made Singapore a more popular trading centre. Also, As the Malay population grew, the Malays took up other forms of business. They became shopkeepers, hawkers and fishermen. The early settlers were able to buy much-needed food supplies from them. Malay woodcutters helped to supply firewood to European and Chinese and British households. As for the Indians, Some of them provided banking services to local businessmen. Services provided by the Indians were moneychanging and working as Chettiars. The Chettiars in particular lent money to businessmen who needed money to set up their businesses. Lastly, for the Chinese, some businessmen were shopkeepers who sold provisions, medicine, cloth and snacks. They supplied some of the everyday needs of the people in Singapore.

Other contributions of immigrants are social contributions.
The Malays helped to build settlements, like how Syed Mohamed Bin Alsagoff spent large sums of money to build amenities like water wells and firewood for the community. On a separate note, Syed Mohamed Bin Alsagoff also donated a plot of land to build St Andrew’s Cathedral. For the Indians, the early Chettiars built a temple for themselves which was commonly known as Chettiar's Temple, and an early Indian settler, Veerasamy Naidoo, set up his own clinic, known as India Despensary. He combined the use of Indian medicine with Western medicine when treating his patients and was so successful that people from other races also sought his advice. For the Chinese, one group of Chinese businessmen acted as middlemen between the local traders and the British traders. They bought straits produce from the non-English speaking traders from the Malay Archipelago and sold them to British businessmen. They also bought goods from the British and sold them to Archipelago traders.
These are the main economic and social contributions made by the immigrants.