SINGAPORE, July 11 — Despite criticism of his English, presidential hopeful George Goh insists that he is able to communicate well, as shown in his business dealings with international companies, and that he views trustworthiness and sincerity as more important.

He also said that he speaks more than one language, during a fireside chat attended by about 130 entrepreneurs organised by entrepreneurship coaching firm Super Scaling at the Singapore Management University yesterday.

"If you speak English, (people) will understand but they prefer their own language, the working language. As a businessman, we have to master not only one language — we have to master a few,” Goh told the media after the event.

Some of the languages he speaks include Hakka, Bahasa and minnan yu, or Taiwanese Hokkien.

Since declaring his intention to run for the elected presidency on June 12, the founder of Harvey Norman Ossia has done several interviews with the media.

Some netizens who watched video excerpts of these interviews have criticised his English and questioned how it would look on Singapore if he becomes the head of state.

When asked by TODAY if he felt his English skills might impact him should he represent Singapore on the international stage as President, Goh disagreed.

"Now, language is one thing. You must understand that when I communicate with you, there’s another word called body language — body language to show your sincerity,” he said.

"At some point in time people will know whether you tell the truth, because they look at your eye. They look at the way you talk. They will know: ‘I can do business with you. I can trust you’.”

Goh also drew a reference to former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s English abilities, saying that most people’s skills are "nowhere near there”.

During the fireside chat, Goh talked about his startup journey and how he runs multiple businesses — such as footwear, sports and fashion retailer Ossia International.

In response to a question about choosing the right business partners, he said his success in pitching a business proposal to Harvey Norman co-founder Gerry Harvey may have been due to his less-than-stellar English skills making him seem "more authentic”.

"When you want to sell to a billionaire, don’t speak too well. Sorry I teach you the wrong way,” he joked.

He views his businesses as one entity

Goh also insists that he is qualified to run for the elected presidency, despite the fact that none of his companies, individually, meets the shareholder equity criterion.

Prospective presidential candidates from the private sector are required to run a firm with at least S$500 million in shareholders’ equity during the person’s most recent three-year period as chief executive officer, among other criteria.

Goh runs a group of companies with a collective market capitalisation value of S$3.15 billion.

"The way I set up my organisations — different industry, different organisation,” he told the media.

"So what most of us like to do is that we try to put up our retail in sporting goods into one (organisation), another you put in another organisation.”

He said that his businesses should be viewed as one entity because they are all run by him. "Anyway, it’s managed by me... I am the chief executive who managed this.”

In response to a question about whether any of the event’s participants had expressed support for his potential run for President, Goh said that he had participated at the event to share his experiences with the young generation.

"Let’s not worry about the election. People know who they want to elect at the end of the day, if you give them the choice they will know,” he said.

"But this platform (the fireside chat), cannot talk about election.” — TODAY