if you are measuring richness with the GDP per capita of each country, brunei could even win all the countries in SEA, because of its oil. besides, did you forget about the megapower, Japan?
singapore does not even dare to claim herself to be a developed countries, simply because she will lose out a lot of benefits if she does so. besides, a developed country has a lot of criterias, i won't judge whether malaysia will become a developed country. the status itself is not important, it's more of the society itself.
yesyes, malaysia may win singapore simply because.. recently the 'evergreen' project will taken away from singapore to malaysia. but! 'evergreen' is actually moving part of his shipping lines back to singapore because of PSA's good port service, unlike malaysia who has got less berths than singapore. besides.. if malaysia wants to move on, i think they should stop being biased to the malays, and show equality to every group of ethical groups in the society. furthermore, i believe that, malaysia still has a long way to go, just like singapore, to establish a very stable economy and society.
need i say more? singapore's biggest enemy is the world itself, especially when China enters WTO.. it's another issue once again. in terms of cost-competitiveness, many countries would lose out to China, as it currently still has abundance of resources.
