Singapore Competitiveness

According to my presentation concerning Singapore Competiveness, I gained a lot of valuable knowledge about that country such as economic, political and especially its competitiveness. Although Singapore is just a tiny island and few of natural resources, it is a strong economic country and can be ranked no.5 the most competitive country in the world based on the global competitiveness report 2008-2009 (World Economic Forum, 2009). Thus, it is very interesting to discover how Singapore contests in international competition despite its lacking of essential physical resources, area and labor supply in particularly, for manufacturing as well as agriculture.

The starting point of Singapore economy was from a base of abilities in entrepôt trade, petroleum refining and seaport service. Subsequently, it progressed into export industrial products based on tremendously FDI expanding. Singapore industrial activities were feeble for a decade due to a little entrepreneurial know-how and novel technology spilled over from China and a weak structure of domestic entrepreneurship. Eventually, the government performed tightly to improve the business structure and the specific skills needed was created by intervening vastly of Singapore government (Ashton et al., 1999). Strongly policy support and its industrial structure encouraged and carried on industrial growth rapidly. In addition, Wong (2003) indicated that Singapore government attempted to attract FDI and used it as a tool to accomplish its goals.

However, there are several aspects to enable Singapore compete globally at the moment. Firstly, Singapore has population approximately 4.6 millions in 2007 (Singapore Department of Statistics, 2008) that refers to a small number of labor forces as well however those workforces are highly educated. Along with constant education system development by government, Singapore provides a large pool of engineer and also a number of skilled technicians. In addition, the country offers corporations the opportunity to find the best staffs from worldwide as its immigration policy openness (Singapore Government, 2009). An open immigration policy has supported Singapore to be a large base of talent which is very crucial for the country growth as Lee Kuan Yew, Senior Minister of Singapore, states that “We must continue to attract as many able and talented men and women form China, India, the region and from developed countries, to add to our team. Without this input of foreign talent, even the USA could not have been so successful …” (Rajan, 2003: 8, cited in Lee, 2002). Today, Singapore is an attractive place for researchers and expertise from US, UK and the rest of the world (Singapore Government, 2009). The open immigration policy together with successfully in R&D improvement play a vital role to induce foreign direct investment in which enables Singapore success in high-technology export especially electronics and petrochemicals. In other word, the immigration policy and effectiveness of R&D help to enhance its workforces to compete with other countries in the globalization era which any companies in the world able to easily invest, outsource and offshore in any states. It can be said that the successful education system assists to generate precious human assets which is the root of developing the country in other areas.

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Secondly, in term of political along with law and regulation, Singapore has an effectiveness of government so far. As a result of high quality governments, good policy, law and regulation have been initiated making its economic escalation. Based on the book by Lall (2004), Singapore government is the only one nation in the region offering all supporting MNCs in the boom in offshore manufacture by multinational companies in the electronics industry during 1970 and 1980. The rapidity and flexibility of government to supply infrastructure such as transport and communication built a big opportunity and also gave Singapore the competitiveness ...

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