Singapore as an Asian Business Tiger - Example

Singapore as an Asian Business Tiger Insert name Insert Institution Introduction Singapore has served as a regional entreport from the early nineties. The greatest advantages it possesses are its deep waters and being in a strategic position and location in the line of ships plying the route of East Asia and Europe. The British colonial administration also enhanced and enacted free port policy in the country that has encouraged trading and development of large ports in the area due to its deep harbours. Policies and programs in the state have encouraged the development and harnessing of labour from women and other affordable and efficient groups. With installation of vibrant and robust industries in the country, the economy of the country is in a massive growth direction ensuring success and achievement of national economic growth targets and regional growth initiatives. Role of the state Singapore as a city-state had a preindustrial economic activity of acting as an entreport for trading rather than a point of natural resources applications and agriculture. Since the early 1960s, the economic pillars of the state of the city have had massive shift to economic and service factors. The government decided to enact policies and programs of applying, majorly a shift to production of chemicals, electronics and transport equipments. These made the country to venture into wide scale production. In the service sector the policies of government were the expansion and stabilization of trade, finance, business, transport and communication. These prospects lead to growth and development of trade and financial services of the country hence the shift and progress in the economy of the country to the level that it stands upon in the current generation (Kaur, 2004). The programs of the government have had success due to the political goodwill and the efficiency of the support institution. The constitution of the country and the support regulations have played a major role in the implementation process through enacting friendly, applicable and implementable processes and projects for the country’s investment and development attempts. Policies developed by the government have lead to development of programs making its employment policies competitive and the second best competitive economy in the world. The government has equally ensured the upgrading of the transport hubs in the international levels through improvement of airports and seaports’ hence improving the traffic flows in the passenger shipments into and out of the country. Information and technology level in the country has improved and have gained efficiency and innovative status hence the port is referred to and the intelligent island (Kaur, 2003). The role of international institutions The international institutions had to implement innovations that are applicable and sustainable within the regional and cultural environment of Singapore. The improvement of the economy of this region greatly influenced and shaped by the activities and opportunities provided by international financial and development institution. The programs were sustainable and applicable in the context of the economy of Singapore and other Asian countries. This lead to the wide scale observed economic and other socio cultural advancements and develops experienced and going on in the continent. The proper planning and allocation of institutions by the organizations lead to effective and decentralized systems of management hence proper delegation of duties to the responsible bodies. The decentralization attempts by international organizations were achieved through delegation of duties and developing programs and policies applicable specifically to the needs and necessities of the host countries. For example some of the Asian countries created an infrastructure within like the World Bank. Projects got managed and funding by organizations and institutions through funding by central facilities. Decentralized organisations linked together into a senior global organization through rules and procedures lead to the development of functional global institutions (Kaur & Ratna, 2000). The major global institutional players in the operations and development of the region include the IMF, World Bank and the World Trade Organizations. These bodies and institutions developed applicable and functioning bodies in the Asian sector of their branches to face the development issues and initiatives of this sections.IMF in this area played a major role in the stability and status of macroeconomic operations through lending, surveillance and systematic stability. In connection to the applications and development by IMF the region developed an Asian Monetary fund that managed monetary issues and needs of the region in a comprehensive and equal way. The World Bank had programs to handle poverty reduction, environmental conservation, food and energy issues of the region. Equally, the region developed its equivalent of the World Bank in development of Asian Development Bank. The institution played a major role in developing the region through offering regional development priorities and regional infrastructure lending. There was major trade liberalization by the World Trade Organization through liberalizations and dispute resolution. The region has developed a financial institution referred to as Asia Wide Financial Trade Association (Mackerras, 2000). The institutions have played a major part in the development of macroeconomic stability, families and frameworks for managing financial issues in various sectors. With the decentralization of the operations of the international organizations in the country and in the region .The region of Asia has developed institutional characters and bodies that have ensured implementation. The region-based organizations have been able to offer specifically designed programs for the regions meeting needs at the points of necessity. Why women were preferred According to Edna Bonacich ethnic and gender labour groups remain relevant (ref...). Edna places a contribution by giving conflicts between labour groups within a structural context. Owners will always will always profit from group competition and divide and conquer workers to advance their own agendas. The labour market is split on gender basis (the case of Singapore), and then manipulated to accept lower wages (Tipton, 1998). Women being a hardworking group and less educated during that time, they were the most preferred labour for most of the company work that did not require much of education. Due to the low level of their education, they could be easily manipulated to do much work, longer working hours and low pay. Ethnic and sex antagonism is produced specifically by the competition that arises from a price differential. Competition between cheaper labour and expensive labour is the initial price of wage. Labourers level of living, information and political resources and motives like fixed or supplementary income goals and the desire and willingness to work for lower wages, longer hours and their convenience to the employer. This will vary for different groups of workers (Brydon & Chant, 1989). At the time of the economic revolution in Singapore, women did have jobs because the society in Asia never wanted women to work but to stay home and take care of the homes. The company and the growing industry requited a lot of manpower at a cheaper price and lucky enough, the women were present to provide that. The price to hire this group of labour was driven down significantly by the group’s willingness to accept lower wage, work for longer hours and to ignore unionizing. Distribution and relocation of manufactured products, exports and industries involved The copyright based industries appear to be more volatile that the overall economy itself. The estimated output multiplier of the core company was high in a study by Leo and colleagues (2004). This value comprised of the direct and the indirect value added from one unit increase in the core copyright industries. As a group, the copyright industries had a great impact on the economy; this was in terms of generation of output, GDP and jobs. Among the copyright industries, the music industry, theoretical production and opera have the second output multiplier, value added, and employment multipliers. Singapore not having a natural resource because it has a small land area, most of the manufactured products are electronics manufacturing and machinery, financial services, tourism and the world’s largest cargo seaport. The main export industries are machinery and equipment, electronics, consumer goods. The primary import partners of Singapore include, US, Japan, China, Malaysia South Korea and Indonesia. Worldwide, Singapore is ranked as the fifteenth largest importer and the Fourteenth largest exporter. The process of redistribution and relocation of products of Singapore are greatly influenced by the fact that the state i a regional hub of ICT and related technology services. The country is a major exporter many foreign countries among them the European, American and African markets. Products to the various international markets are transported either through the water transport means or through air transportation. The seaports of the country are efficient with logical and comprehensive handling of freighter goods plus corruption free services hence enabling international businesspersons to feel comfortable trading in the country. Air transportation and the airports equally act as effective means of accessing and using the country’s infrastructure hence acting as an initiative and motivation to operate activities in the country. The country has a strategic location in East Asia and the pacific making it a favourable destination for manufacturing industries in the region .There are actually numerous foreign investors in the country bringing in the important knowledge and financial investment in the country encouraging development and financial improvements for the country. Distribution and relocation of products and services in the region is easy since it is the global commercial and financial penetration into South East Asia and Southern Asia in relation to goods and products entering the global financial and business market. The port of the country have served as a regional entreport since the early 1900 years hence added an advantage and opportunity for effective relocation and distribution of its products to the global market (Chapkins & Enlow, 1983). Conclusion The economies of Asian states have had a massive improvement in the previous century to reach unexpected and unimagined financial and economic milestones. The economy of Singapore has had massive improvement and stabilization due a number of factors in management and operational approach. The economic initiatives and programs developed by the state have enabled the systems in practice to enhance efficiency of operations in the country and improve economic well being of the entire country. Singapore’s economy stands on a healthy growth path and nearing stability in relation to other world economic giants and rising institutions. Recent rankings place the country as the third wealthiest in the world with government anticipation of increased in flow in investment in the country. The growth of the country’s and region’s economy is based on sound, applicable and efficient policies and programs supporting investment in human labour and supportive of initiatives of foreign investors in the region. References Brydon, L., & Chant, S. (1989). Women in the Third World: Gender issues in rural and urban areas. Aldershot. Chapkins, W., & Enlow, C. (1983). Of Common cloth:Women in the global textile industry. Routeledge. Kaur, A. (2004). Wage Labour in South Asia Since 1840. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kaur, A. (2003). Women workers in industrialising Asia: Costed, not valued . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kaur, A., & Ratna, S. (2000). Women workers in Asia. Special Issue. Asian Studies Review , 24-26. Mackerras, C. (2000). Eastern Asia. Pearson. Tipton, B. (1998). The Rise of Asia. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Read More