10,000 trees will be planted across Singapore to commemorate the birth of the city-state’s founding Prime Minister, the late Lee Kuan Yew, who was known as the Republic’s chief gardener.

Lee, who died in 2015, led the first nationwide tree-planting effort in 1963 and introduced the ‘Garden City’ vision in May 1967, sparking a decades-long greening push.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong remarked that Lee’s goal was to keep Singapore clean and green in order to improve the quality of life for all Singaporeans as he launched the LKY100 series of initiatives on Sunday with a tree planting day.

He stated that the LKY100 initiatives, which will also include community dialogues and public programmes, will honor Lee’s values and ideals, which helped shape the People’s Action Party (PAP) and helped make Singapore what it is today, despite having one of the world’s most densely packed high-rise building developments.

The party has administered the affluent city-state since its independence from the Federation of Malaysia in 1965.

According to Worldometer’s elaboration of the most recent United Nations data, Singapore has a population of 5,980,854 as of May 7. The population of the city-state is equal to 0.08 percent of the entire world population.

Wong noted that, in the face of external problems such as the Ukraine war and rising protectionism, Singapore may draw confidence and strength from what the country’s founding leaders went through in the past.

Deputy Prime Minister said, “Our pioneers did not stumble and fall; they defied the odds, they gritted their teeth and built today’s Singapore which we enjoy”.

“So, I’m confident that if we continue to draw strength from what they have been through and motivate ourselves with those same founding values and ideals that were built today, we can overcome whatever challenges that come our way and continue to build a fantastic Singapore together”, Mr. Wong added.

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