Singapore a country that gained independence in 1965. It had a GDP per capita of U.S. $320, almost 3 million people were unemployed, more than two-thirds of its population was living in slums, it had two large and unfriendly states around it, Malaysia and Indonesia, it lacked natural resources, sanitation, proper infrastructure, and adequate water supply. A state like this would be called a disaster but Singapore turned around and is one of the fastest-growing economies of the world and a developed country. The story of Singapore is interesting because we are seeing many authoritarian countries like Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia which are the fastest-growing economies we thought why don’t we take the example of the best small, authoritarian country which had nothing and today is one of the best-developed country, as authoritarianism seems to be the new trend in the modern world.
Singapore’s education system has been ranked one of the best in the world, has a GDP per capita of $58,500, has the best healthcare system, was ranked 4th among the healthiest country in the world, has been ranked No.1 in the area of order and security and has sparse unemployment rate. For a country to go from a GDP per capita of $320 to $58,500 in 50 years is remarkable so let us see the role of government which turned Singapore into a developed, middle-income country.
In one of the previous article, we had compared China and North Korea, where we had seen that how China despite being an authoritarian nation had a free market, decentralised economy which helped China grow exponentially, whereas North Korea, on the other hand, was just focused on retaining its power(link here). It is a similar case with Singapore where personal freedom of people was curtailed and replaced with an autocratic government, the death penalty was introduced for crimes involving corruption or narcotics, independent trade unions were destroyed and replaced by one group called the National Trade Union Congress(NTUC) and anyone threatening national unity was jailed without a trial by courts. But despite these harsh government rules Singapore has a free market economy, encouraged Foreign Direct Investment(FDI), relaxed business regulations, has a safe, corruption-free environment, and low taxation. These business-friendly laws appealed to international investors even though there is no democracy and this brought in double-digit growth for Singapore and made it one of the highly industrialised economy with the world’s busiest ports bring high revenue to the government.
Another fabulous thing done by the government is that it invited foreign direct investment which accounted for $92 billion of FDI Inward Flow in 2019 and Sovereign Wealth Funds(SWFs). These funds owned by the state are invested globally in financial assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate, and precious metals. Apart from these, there is a private equity owned by the state known as Temasek Holdings, which accounts for 7% of the total market capitalisation of the Singapore-listed companies, and GIC Pte Ltd. which manages the government’s foreign exchange reserves. The decision to invest in the foreign and state listed companies by the government is a very good idea as the government can earn extra revenue as the companies grow.
The approach take by the Singapore government to curtail personal freedom to achieve economic growth is controversial but the government did not compromised the needs of the public and has provided them with the best healthcare, education, and law and order and also have business-friendly laws which will encourage the people and international investors to set up businesses. Although this decision is controversial, it has been successful, unlike a few countries that have an autocratic government but have a failing economy. Though this decision taken by Singapore seems to have been successful and might seem appealing to some people, we here at truly global think that civil liberty must not be compromised at any cost because when people are free to express their ideas when people are free to criticise the government or keep checks on the government, the country can progress faster and people can be happy instead of having strict rules and the government telling them what to do.
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