In the new cabinet structure, senior officeholders of three portfolios – home affairs, finance and national development – will drop their previous duties and take on guiding roles. Of the three, the two who have served as deputy prime minister will continue to do so, while the other will take on a new transport portfolio.

“We don’t have time to lose. To that end, I have given heavy responsibilities to the next generation of ministers,” Lee said on Monday. “They will be stretched and tested, they have to improve themselves and gel together as a team. Soon after the end of this term, we must have a new team ready to take over from me.”

The current parliament has a maximum sitting period of five years before the next general election.

While younger ministers will be taking on more responsibilities, they are largely being shifted around, with the cabinet seeing only two new faces.

Heng Swee Keat was named finance minister, replacing Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who will remain deputy prime minister and maintain an important economic role after a spate of weak indicators.

The appointments suggest Lee wants experienced hands to steer the economy through choppy waters.

Heng, currently education minister, was a former managing director of Singapore’s central bank and praised by Singapore’s late first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, for being the best principal private secretary he ever had.

Shanmugaratnam, who has worked for the International Monetary Fund, will also be the coordinating minister for economic and social policies and continues as the chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the central bank.

“The economy needs steady hands on the deck because the outlook remains challenging,” said Song Seng Wun, an economist at CIMB Private Bank.