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Singapore’s economy must learn to live with disorder and dislocation
That requires keeping Singapore’s costs competitive, backing more home-grown champions and staying open to foreign manpower.
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In a more turbulent world, Singapore must not just seize opportunities, but also be able to absorb shocks, says the writer.
ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG
Kok Ping Soon
There was a sense of deja vu when Singapore’s Economic Strategy Review (ESR) final report was released. Many of its themes – openness, enterprise capabilities, skills and technology – echo the Committee on the Future Economy (CFE) report in 2017 and the subsequent economic reviews since the Covid-19 pandemic.
If anything, the ESR recommendations are a reminder that some fundamentals of Singapore’s growth model still hold, even though the world around those fundamentals has changed sharply. In 2017, globalisation was under strain, but still largely intact. Supply chains were efficient. Geopolitical rivalry had not yet reached today’s intensity. Digitalisation mattered but had not yet become as transformative as it is now.
