The Republic of Singapore

Introduction:

The Republic of Singapore was known as a thriving British trading port back in 1819. She then merged with Malaysia in 1963, but was expelled from the federation in 1965. Singapore, without natural resources, was doomed to fail in eye of neighbouring nations. But has transformed from third to first world standards in a very short period of time.

Singapore also became one of the world’s most affluent nations with important trading links such as one of the busiest ports in the world and best airport infrastructure in the world for years running. Singapore’s GDP per capita is comparable to first world European nation’s counterparts as well.  

Singapore’s economy is largely dependent on exports, some examples are IT-related, user electronics products, pharmaceuticals, and financial services industries. For instance, the republic has one of highest volume in export refineries around the globe, oil exports accounted about 68.1m tons in 2007. The O&G industry accounted for 5% of Singapore’s GDP as well. (Economic Development Board, n.d).  

According to Strait Times: Singapore secured position as the second freest economy in the world in 22 straight years, the acceptance to global trade & investment remains to contribute a sturdy support for economic dynamism in Singapore.

One of the key events happened past decade in Singapore is the collapse of Lehman Brothers that leads to financial crisis in 2008. The Republic takes the lead among the East-Asian countries to fall into recession in 2008. As a result, the economy declined 0.6% but has bounced back as much as 15.2% in 2010 due to power of resumed exports (Central Intelligence Agency, n.d.).

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Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is vital/important in the national income accounting. GDP means the entire market cost of all end goods & services along the time frame provided from different industries.

It includes imports and exports revenue for the country. The population’s income and corporations that operates in the country as well.

With reference from figure 2.1, Singapore’s Real GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has increased by 208% over the past decade, from about US$147.79b to about US$307.86b.

During 2009-2010. Real GDP has increased sharply from about 192.41 billion dollars to about 236.42 billion dollars or 22.9%. It rebounded strongly backed because of the global strong export demand.

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Real GDP growth rate is the changes in country’s GDP that is depending on changes in the country and inflation.

From Figure 2.2, the real GDP growth rate is mostly positive with the exclusion in particular year 2001 and year 2009.

Using Year 2001 to define the rationale of negative trend, real GDP growth rate slumped from +10.1% in 2000 to -2.2% in 2001. Singapore was confronted by obstacles derived from anxieties and due to accelerated downtown from external economic landscape.

The sharp contraction in the US economy, together with Dot-Com bubble and the 9/11 terrorist attacks caused a cumulative action leading to contraction in economies around the world. (Monetary Authority of Singapore, 2003). Being heavily reliant on export markets, Singapore was affected significantly as well.