Singapore - Singapore's state investment company Temasek Holdings has not set a deadline to find a replacement for chief executive Ho Ching, after her designated successor made a surprising exit in July, the city-state's finance minister said Tuesday.

US businessman Charles Goodyear was to succeed Ho Ching, the wife of Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, on October 1, 2009.

But last month Temasek announced that Goodyear, the former boss of global resources company BHP Billiton, would not become its new CEO due to differences over strategy.

"Temasek has no deadline for the search of a CEO successor," Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam told Singapore's parliament in response to questions by legislators.

He declined to comment on the reasons for Goodyear's departure, noting that it would not appropriate for the government to add to Temasek's "carefully considered statement" on the split.

"The government does not directly manage the process of CEO succession," the minister said.

"To do so would make the appointment of the CEO a political decision, which it must never be. The decision must remain the responsibility of the board of Temasek," he added.

Temasek's new CEO should "ideally" be a Singaporean, though that ideal was not always possible, Tharman said.

Goodyear would have been Temasek's first foreign CEO.

The US businessman did not receive any compensation on separation, the minister said. (dpa)