单项选择题"We want Singapore to have the X-factor, that buzz that you get in London, Paris, or New York". That is how Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore"s prime minister, (1)_____ his government"s decision to (2)_____ gambling in the country, (3)_____ two large, Vegas-style casinos. Whether the casinos will indeed help to transform Singapore"s staid image remains to be seen. But the decision bas already (4)_____ an uncharacteristic buzz among the country"s normally (5)_____ citizens. The government has contemplated, and rejected (6)_____ casinos several times in the past. One reason was (7)_____ Singapore"s economic growth was so rapid that casinos seemed like an unnecessary evil. Buddhism and Islam, two of the country"s main religions, (8)_____ on gambling. The government itself has traditionally had strong, and often (9)_____, ideas about how its citizens should behave. Until recently, for example, it refused to (10)_____ homosexuals to the civil service. It also used to (11)_____ chewing gum, which it considers a public nuisance. Nowadays, (12)_____, Singapore"s electronics industry, the mainstay of the economy, is struggling to cope with cheap competition from places like China. In the first quarter of this year, output (13)_____ by 5.8% at an annual rate. So the government wants lo promote tourism and other services to (14)_____ for vanishing jobs in manufacturing. Merrill Lynch, an investment bank, (15)_____ the two proposed casinos could (16)_____ in as much as $4 billion in the initial investment alone. (17)_____ its estimates, they would have annual revenues of (18)_____ $3.6 billion, and pay at least $600 million in taxes and fees. The government, for its part, thinks the integrated (19)_____, as it coyly calls the casinos, would (20)_____ as many as 35,000 jobs.
A．claimed
B．maintained
C．announced
D．pronounced
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