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26-09-2015, 10:10 AM
An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
Please feel free to add Sinkie bashing articles to this thread.
My first contribution is this:
NOT everything is perfect in Singa-heaven
Singapore's economy contracted in the second quarter as sluggish global demand and government restrictions on foreign labour affected the manufacturing sector, raising the prospect of further monetary easing later this year.
SCMP, July 15
I haven't been out Singapore-bashing for a long, long time and the itch to get some in just cannot be denied any longer.
The breakdown by industrial sector for these Singapore second-quarter figures is not yet available but the first chart shows that the trend has been well established for the past eight years. The Singapore manufacturing sector is on its way down.
Even at 17 per cent of gross domestic product, however, down from 27 per cent 10 years ago, the question arises: why still as high as 17 per cent?
Here we have a small island state with a tiny domestic market, a strong currency, high wages, little land area, little proprietary technology, a small domestic workforce and a commercial tradition only of shipping and trading. Since when has this been a prescription for a successful manufacturing base?
Hong Kong, for instance, has long conceded the inevitable in these same circumstances with a manufacturing sector that now contributes little more than 1 per cent of GDP. Why is Singapore's any higher?
The answer is that the Singapore city fathers (and one may perhaps make this plural a singular) decided many years ago that Singapore should not put all its economic eggs in a services basket but diversify into manufacturing as well.
Where, however, could one find the expertise to do this in a nation of bureaucrats and shopkeepers?
The obvious answer was to bring in foreigners to do it, as in foreign industrialists to invest in, set up and manage the factories, and foreign labour to provide the bulk of the workforce. The native-born, as in Hong Kong, do not demean themselves by dirtying their hands.
And thus it was done. Net investment manufacturing commitments in Singapore have consistently been 80 per cent foreign over the years with sweeteners always on offer to keep them coming and so help serve the great god Nodex (non-oil domestic exports. This is a land of acronyms).
But the initiative has had other results and the second chart shows one of them. Primary income on the balance of payments represents profits that investors from your country bring back from their investments abroad, less what foreign investors repatriate from the profits of their investments in your country.
In Singapore, this figure is consistently negative to the tune of about 3 per cent of GDP, year after year. There is a price to bringing in foreign investment and Singapore must pay it, year after year.
Hong Kong's primary income balance, in contrast, is in surplus to the tune of ... well, what do you know ... about 3 per cent of GDP, year after year. There is a benefit to being a foreign investor. Hong Kong enjoys it, year after year.
You may have noticed some recent commentary in this paper about what a lost cause Hong Kong is, particularly compared to Singa-heaven.
Yup.
http://www.scmp.com/business/global-...t-singa-heaven (http://www.scmp.com/business/global-economy/article/1839958/not-everything-perfect-singa-heaven)
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?217081-Everything-is-Perfect-in-Singa-Haven-69-9-Voted-for-These&goto=newpost).
Please feel free to add Sinkie bashing articles to this thread.
My first contribution is this:
NOT everything is perfect in Singa-heaven
Singapore's economy contracted in the second quarter as sluggish global demand and government restrictions on foreign labour affected the manufacturing sector, raising the prospect of further monetary easing later this year.
SCMP, July 15
I haven't been out Singapore-bashing for a long, long time and the itch to get some in just cannot be denied any longer.
The breakdown by industrial sector for these Singapore second-quarter figures is not yet available but the first chart shows that the trend has been well established for the past eight years. The Singapore manufacturing sector is on its way down.
Even at 17 per cent of gross domestic product, however, down from 27 per cent 10 years ago, the question arises: why still as high as 17 per cent?
Here we have a small island state with a tiny domestic market, a strong currency, high wages, little land area, little proprietary technology, a small domestic workforce and a commercial tradition only of shipping and trading. Since when has this been a prescription for a successful manufacturing base?
Hong Kong, for instance, has long conceded the inevitable in these same circumstances with a manufacturing sector that now contributes little more than 1 per cent of GDP. Why is Singapore's any higher?
The answer is that the Singapore city fathers (and one may perhaps make this plural a singular) decided many years ago that Singapore should not put all its economic eggs in a services basket but diversify into manufacturing as well.
Where, however, could one find the expertise to do this in a nation of bureaucrats and shopkeepers?
The obvious answer was to bring in foreigners to do it, as in foreign industrialists to invest in, set up and manage the factories, and foreign labour to provide the bulk of the workforce. The native-born, as in Hong Kong, do not demean themselves by dirtying their hands.
And thus it was done. Net investment manufacturing commitments in Singapore have consistently been 80 per cent foreign over the years with sweeteners always on offer to keep them coming and so help serve the great god Nodex (non-oil domestic exports. This is a land of acronyms).
But the initiative has had other results and the second chart shows one of them. Primary income on the balance of payments represents profits that investors from your country bring back from their investments abroad, less what foreign investors repatriate from the profits of their investments in your country.
In Singapore, this figure is consistently negative to the tune of about 3 per cent of GDP, year after year. There is a price to bringing in foreign investment and Singapore must pay it, year after year.
Hong Kong's primary income balance, in contrast, is in surplus to the tune of ... well, what do you know ... about 3 per cent of GDP, year after year. There is a benefit to being a foreign investor. Hong Kong enjoys it, year after year.
You may have noticed some recent commentary in this paper about what a lost cause Hong Kong is, particularly compared to Singa-heaven.
Yup.
http://www.scmp.com/business/global-...t-singa-heaven (http://www.scmp.com/business/global-economy/article/1839958/not-everything-perfect-singa-heaven)
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?217081-Everything-is-Perfect-in-Singa-Haven-69-9-Voted-for-These&goto=newpost).