By George Tan, Guest Columnist
I am worried about the long term future of Singapore. Our country is an oddball in this part of the world. Countries around us are frequently accused of being corrupted and badly managed.
Due to this, our PAP government stood out well. Its clean and nonsense way of dealing with other countries made us unique and good to deal with. We prosper as the US and European countries prefer to deal through us rather than with our neighbors.
Through these years, our country has undergone many changes in its strategy to move our economy forward. We were first a trading then manufacturing economy. For a while, we thrived till our leaders discovered there will always be cheaper labor elsewhere and so we tried to change.
We began to move to manufacture highly specialized goods such as computer products and hard disks. We attracted many companies. Then when one of our home companies ST Eng tried to eat up Micropolis, this caused a major backlash such that the company had to be written off.
Next our country attempted to move to be a IT Hub. Unfortunately, India beat us to it flat. They produce far more programmers than many times our population. So as a IT hub, we failed.
Then we attempted enter Bio tech with the construction of Biopolis. From rumours I heard, that place is very quiet. I don’t think our country will produce the cure for cancer or AIDS. I have not heard of any major breakthrough in research after all the money thrown in.
So we then try to be a service economy, our ports grew to be world standard. Despite Malaysia offering cheaper price, ships still prefer to come over our place. Yet with global trade down, two third of our cranes are idling and services are not required.
We attempted to be a financial hub for Asia to compete with Hong Kong. Apart from the polluted air, Hong Kong is in a far better position as a financial hub as compared to us as they are closer to China. And the economic giant in this century will be China.
China will be more interested to keep Hong Kong prosperous rather than Singapore due to political reasons. And in this crisis, financial centres are worst hit. This explains why we are the first to be in recession.
The last card we seem to have is the casinos. It was a viable and important change as our government may have realised that Singapore has little drivers for the economy ahead. Yet Donald Trump Casino just declared being bankrupted. This spells woes to us as well.
Casinos are supposed to be recession proof. But I am sure if you go down Las Vegas, you will find that casinos are desperate for customers. And guess what? Sands is in financial trouble. But they have stopped all projects all around the world except Singapore. I wonder why Sands would do that. Singapore is an untested market for Sands, whereas Macau is a well known gambling den. I would put my bets on Macau rather than Singapore. (No pun intented) I guess some agreements or new aids must have been settled unannounced.
After saying all these, I would like to point out that I wish Singapore all the best, but I can’t see any drivers for the island. Apart from being an education hub, I can’t see any other drivers in the main economy that will propel future prosperity for Singapore.
Strangely enough, I think the only way Singapore will have a future is to rejoin Malaysia. But that is another story for another time.
someone, over a dinner table mentioned to me years ago, that singapore should follow the example of Australia. be an education hub.
But singapore started too late on that. More universities mean more places for locals as well as international students.
But they kept plunking their money on potential toxic assets.
A Singaporean’s worry for the future of his nation? why worry, when everything collapses, PAP collapses, and doesnt that make u peeps and scoundrels happy?
Not that i wish they do.