When the British returned to Singapore after the end of World War II in 1945, food and medical supplies were scarce, electricity and other services were in disarray, and the death rate was twice what it had been before the war. Gambling and prostitution were growth industries, with opium and alcohol serving as religion to the most dispossessed among the masses. In September 1945, Singapore became the headquarters of the British Military Administration (BMA). The BMA, cynically renamed the “Black Market Administration”, was rife with incompetence, arbitrary rule and corruption. Profiteers and former collaborators thrived as the returning British depended on the “professional survivors” who had served the Japanese with the same effortless chicanery that they had displayed previously towards the British.

However, by April 1946, when military rule came to an end, the BMA had restored gas, water, and electric services to levels that were above their pre-war capacity. The port returned to civilian control; several companies received priority in importing sorely-needed supplies and materials; Japanese prisoners were made to repair docks and airfields; and schools were reopened. By late 1947, the economy began to recover because of growing demand around the world for tin and rubber. The following year, Singapore's rubber production reached an all-time high, and abundant harvests in neighbouring rice-producing countries ended the most serious food shortages. By 1949, trade, productivity, and social services were restored to their pre-war levels. By 1951, demand for tin and rubber for the Korean War brought an economic boom to Singapore.

After the war, Lim's family went about rehabilitating its business interests. His father restarted his petrol stations, and his father-in-law reactivated his gold, jewellery and pawnshops business. The establishment in 1946 of the Malayan Union and the exclusion from it of Singapore, which became a separate Crown Colony, did not affect his father-in-law's business interests in Malaya because there were no policies then that favoured indigenous bumiputra (native Malays).