Singapore’s Economic Performance for 2005 – 2014

Singapore’s Economic Performance for 2005 – 2014

Introduction – An overview of Singapore’s Economy (264 words)

Singapore is stated to be one of the worlds most competitive and have a strong economy. In 2015, Singapore’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was worth at almost 300 billion US dollars. Singapore’s GDP value represented 0.5 percent to the world.  For decades, Singapore’s GDP averaged at about 70 billion US dollars, shooting up in 2014 at 306.34 billion US dollars (Trading Economics, 2017).

Initially 50 years ago, Singapore was struggling with severe unemployment & residential houses shortages. Singapore’s population was recorded at 5.47 million as of 2014 with a slow growth rate at an average of 0.817 percent per year (NPTD-2014 Population in Brief, 2014). Singapore government envisioned a possibility case on shortage of labour in the coming years. Even though Singapore was having one of the best impermanence rates compared with many countries, Singapore had a very slow birth rate of only 8.5 over a thousand populations which mean that the population replacement was at the lowest if compared again. And in due to that issue, Singapore government started to bring in foreign immigrants and expatriates to create a living in Singapore which would help to boost the population rate. To date, expatriates & foreign labourers comprise of about 35 percent of the employment force. Majority of these foreign labourers cost cheap as they come from developing neighbouring countries who takes on jobs that Singaporeans will not do. The smaller percentages are made of expatriates who were brought in to raise competitiveness for fellow Singaporeans. According to Monetary Association of Singapore (MAS), the net trade gains in the early of 2015 were all due to the increase in foreign workers employment (MAS - Labour Market & Inflation, 2015).

Production / Output Performance Analysis (604 words)

Real gross domestic product (GDP) measures a country’s income or services produced.  The GDP is equal to the total expenses for all provisional goods and services yield within the country in a specific period. Below is a time-series graph showing Singapore’s Real GDP from 2005 to 2014.

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Figure 1: Real GDP (US$ billions)

In the early years, Singapore’s manufacturing industry started attracting Multi National Companies (MNCs) and Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). That became Singapore’s foundation to be developed into a more advanced and technology driven economy. These boosted up the hotel industry in Singapore as it attracts more tourists. By 2010, Singapore was rated top three most accelerated economies with a GDP growth rate of close to fifteen percent (Economy Watch, 2010).  As seen in the graph trend, Singapore’s GDP continued climbing till 2014.