Winners for the 2003/2004 MAS-ESS Essay Writing Competition were announced at the ESS Annual Dinner, held at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel on 28th June 2004.

The topic of the Essay Competition was "How can Singapore remain Competitive in a Globalising World Economy?"

Judges' Comments

Judges noted that the response this year was encouraging, with greater and fairly wide-ranging participation amounting to a total of 83 entries [25 for the Open Category and 58 for the Student Category].

In the Open Category, apart from the decline in the number of participants, the judges thought that the quality of the essays were somewhat lower than last year.

However, in the Student Category, 58 students from 14 junior colleges participated, more than double the number from previous year's participation. Judges also noted that the quality of the student essays were also distinctly better than in previous years. This made selecting the prize winners a challenging task for them.

Prize winners for MAS-ESS Essay Competition 2003

	Student Category	Open Category
First Prize	Prize: $2,000 Mr See Kok Heng Hwa Chong Junior College	Prize: $5,000 Mr Chian Choo Banker DBS Bank
Second Prize	Prize: $1,000 Ms Judith Huang Si Ying Hwa Chong Junior College	Prize: $2,000 Dr Donghyun Park Associate Professor Nanyang Business School, NTU
Third Prize	Prize: $500 Mr Tsang Wai Ching Anglo-Chinese Junior College	Prize: $1,000 Mr Terence Ho Economist Ministry of Trade & Industry

Awards Ceremony

Winners received their prize from Minister BG George Yeo (Ministry of Trade and Industry) at the Awards Ceremony, held in conjunction with the ESS Annual Dinner. (Note: BG George Yeo's speech available for download here.)

Congratulations, Winners!

Download and view winning essay from Open Category
Download and view winning essay from Student Category

An abridged version of the top essays in each category will be published in the Business Times and The Edge.