Economy of Singapore
By Kristoffer, Jonathan and Agnes
Singapore was one of the original "Newly Industrialised Countries" alongside Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. Between the 1960s to the 1980s, the manufacturing industry, in particular, was able to attract numerous Multi-National Companies and Foreign Direct Investment into the country. This became the foundation for Singapore to grow into one of the most advanced and technologically driven economies in the world. Singapore is now one of the world’s most growing economies. It has a GDP per capita higher than many of the world’s most developed countries. Despite it’s small domestic market, Singapore’s economy plays an important role in the global marketplace. It has and open business environment and depends heavily on exports, particularly in consumer electronics, information technology products, pharmaceuticals, and on a growing financial services sector. It is one of the most stable in macroeconomic terms with no foreign debt, high government revenue, and consistently positive growth and also by being relatively corruption-free and transparent. It is a place highly recommended to foreign investors. The risk of a larger economic shortfall is close to non-existent and therefore the multinational companies are rushing to Singapore in order to get successful investments. |
The level of the transformation has been enough to push Singapore into the ranks of the world’s fastest growing financial centres. As places like London and Switzerland debate whether to have an economy based on bankers, Singapore has started it’s own special government school to train private bankers. This has inspired many others to do the same – Credit Suisse plans to do something similar because of the success in Singapore. Transformation is the key word of the Singaporean growth - just as it was in Denmark during the 50’s and 60’s. |