Let me go back a little bit through history. Pre-1974 the Singapore Government had set up a number of companies to create jobs because of the need to address the unemployment issue of the time, and there was no experience to go by.

Essentially the Government entrusted able people to run these companies and a number have done very well. In 1974, the Government made a decision that it, the Government, is not in the best position to run businesses; the Government should not be in business and therefore set up Temasek Holdings and these companies report under Temasek Holdings. And we've succeeded over the years because of successful generations of good boards of directors, good management and staff, and if there's any one lesson to be learnt from the success story, is that success depends on quality people; on good people.

We owe our success to the support that we get from Singaporeans and the wider community. There is a lot of good will for Temasek because of our reputation but also, more importantly, because of Singapore's reputation; Singapore's reputation for good governance and thoughtful policies. So as Temasek turns 40 I've reflected on what are the events and things that shape and molded Temasek.   

There's one central conclusion that I draw, and that is that success depends on committed and capable people and our successful investments are in companies where there are good, capable boards of directors and also good management.

There is a common thread in what Temasek does: what we do, we do with tomorrow in mind ‑ a quote from one of our founding leaders Mr S Rajaratnam. So we build the institution and we build it for future generations.

Now, throughout history businesses have regarded themselves not just as pure business but that they are part of the community and there are examples of successful businessmen or businesses that contribute back to society. In China, I'm told the successful businessmen repair bridges and roads, and in our own early years, successful businessmen built schools and also a university; successful businessmen continue to help shape our schools and tertiary institutions.

So Temasek itself cannot work in a silo. We are part of that broader community so we learn, we earn and we return.  We learn by doing, with some occasional missteps; we earn by taking a long‑term view and we return to our shareholders and to the community.  So as a company we pay taxes like other companies, we pay a dividend to our shareholder, the Government, and we provide funds to help the community.

Now there is an underlying principle on how we help the community. We set up endowments and support the community through what we call nonprofit philanthropic organisations.  In Temasek we call it NPPO, which is a new acronym I had to learn when I came into Temasek!

The underlying principle is that we support organisations to build capability and we support programs that help people to help themselves, become self‑reliant and lead better lives. So this follows very much the ancient Chinese saying that give a man a fish he's got food for a day, you help him fish he's got food for a lifetime.

Now, what we do, should be sustainable and sustained.  When I say sustainable it means that this must be within the ability of Temasek to provide. Now Temasek has a duty to the country, to our shareholder, so we have to preserve the value of Temasek and to grow Temasek.  So the funds that we provide to help the community come from the profits that we make over and above our risk-adjusted hurdle of return. And when I say sustained help, it means that we prefer not to be giving a one‑off donation but we like to see that the worthy program is supported continuously, and hence the choice of endowment for this purpose.

So through Temasek Cares we have endowed programs assisting those in need and one of the successful programs, for example, is at the KK Women's and Children's Hospital: a program called IIMPACT that helps with the developmental needs of children with diverse or difficult needs. Since 2011, we have 1,500 children assisted through this program and 184 persons who have been trained to be facilitators.

Now also when we do these things, we want the organisation to retain the sense of purpose, the sense of ownership and a sense of accountability. These three facts we ourselves do within Temasek but all the organisations that we work with, we want them to have these three features as well. You know, a sense of purpose, a sense of ownership and a sense of accountability.

And in Temasek we believe that if you want to do well, you have to be prepared all the time and so as we reflect on how we should celebrate our 40th anniversary, we thought that this is an area which we should be looking at.

When we are 40, like, you know, a person who is 40 has got children who have needs to take care of, parents to support and their own retirement needs to plan for. So, in other words, we need to be prepared.

So I'm pleased to announce that Temasek is setting up an endowment - our 40th anniversary so $40 million into what we call the Temasek Emergency Preparedness Fund, a new acronym for us within Temasek: TEP, Temasek Emergency Preparedness Fund.

And this fund is to help with programs to enable people to be prepared and cope with different situations, emergencies and so on. Could be, they come from severe accidents and so could be traumatic experiences that people feel and therefore how to cope with trauma. It could be the result of environmental disasters, like haze, and so on.

Now within Temasek, as we talk about being prepared, we also do our part to equip our staff with skills that helps them to be prepared for emergencies. For example, all our staff have gone through CPR and AED training.

You know that when a person has a cardiac arrest, the speed of assistance makes a difference between whether a person survives or not. So we have trained all our staff in CPR and AED; the next KPI for our staff is to master first aid and we encourage our Temasek portfolio companies to do likewise and I hope that other companies would do as well, because I think these basic skills which are useful, whether at work or at home.

I'd like to underscore this point about being prepared with, I'm sure you've shared this same experience, in 2003 we had SARS and for me it was a very important experience. Nobody knew it was coming and fortunately we were, as a country, able to come together and cope with the situation.

I remember Changi Airport was like a ghost town, our hotels were empty, hotel workers who were members of the union talked to me, completely lost and not knowing when the guests are going to come back.  We had to deal with business contingency planning in case somebody contracts SARS then how does the business continue and therefore had to, you know, arrange within companies how staff work and whether they are all together or they are in different locations. 

Of course we had the hospitals coping and people in the front line coping with SARS and the support, even if moral support, that we all had to provide for the nurses and the doctors and the other staff in the hospitals.  And then we have had people who had contact with those who were struck by SARS and then we had to mobilise the community to deliver essential supplies to the persons who were quarantined.

Then we had to mobilise grass root activities to measure temperature of people, even in markets and so on, and all this is a collective effort of the nation to cope with the particular crisis. So that particular episode was, I think, actually in most people's minds, certainly mine, and I think that is an experience that tells us that this initiative to enable people to be prepared is a worthy one to support, a good one to support.

Now, again, coming back to Temasek's 40th anniversary, we started in 1974 as essentially an idea with a big mission to help Singapore grow and help to build a better Singapore. There was no blueprint or model to follow.

You know the Norwegians when they discovered oil and revenues from oil, and they were thinking what to do, how to manage the funds which they get from that oil, they came to Singapore in the 1990s to talk to GIC about how to set up a social fund.

In 1974 when Temasek was set up it was a few years after the last great war, there were no models to follow and we had to find a way by doing and treading and finding our way, and making our own path.

And 40 years, if you look at the New York Stock Exchange, once upon a time it was the average life of a company, and may now even be shorter.  So the fact that Temasek has survived 40 years is testimony to the hard work, commitment, ability of the people who have worked for this organisation.

But Temasek has got to continue to evolve and I think even at 40, our journey has only just begun. We look forward to commemorating our 40th anniversary but it's also a timely reminder that we have got to continue to learn, to earn and to return to the community, to build across the generations and to build with tomorrow in mind.

For myself, the last 20 months or so in Temasek I have found that Temasek is not just about creating value. It's not just about investing but it's about building an organisation, building for the future, building the people within the organisation and building the community.