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Top reason why Singapore will fall is XENOPHOBIA
You can help to stop XENO by reporting to the mod.
Singapore Will Lose Her Place Among World’s Top Global Cities Within 20 years. Whose Fault Is It?
Posted by: Jude Chan May 9, 2014 in Business, General, Headlines, Singapore, Spotlight
Top global cities of today, and rising cities of tomorrow.
Singapore’s Southeast Asian neighbours Jakarta, Manila, and Kuala Lumpur will overtake the wealthy island-nation at the top of the list of global cities that are attractive to international companies within 20 years, according to a study by global management consulting firm A. T. Kearney.
Jakarta and Manila top the list of emerging cities that will soon be at the centre of global businesses. Kuala Lumpur was ranked 10th in the Chicago-based firm’s Emerging Cities Outlook (ECO) report.
Singapore, on the other hand, is expected to fall quickly out of favour among global businesses looking to set up headquarters.
A. T. Kearney’s Global Cities Index (GCI) measures the performance of major cities worldwide in business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement. The accompanying ECO examines the potential of cities in low- and middle-income countries in improving their future global positioning.
Jakarta and Manila, boosted by giant leaps in human capital and healthcare quality, are set to be catapulted to the top of the world’s global cities in less than two decades despite issues of widespread poverty and infrastructural shortcomings the countries currently face.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s meteoric rise as an economic powerhouse achieved in the remarkably short span of just under 50 years since the nation’s independence, looks to be fizzling out and hurtling towards a black hole.
Xenophobia has crept into the country, with a section of Singaporeans increasingly agitated over the government’s hearty immigration policies. Even as the young nation – facing the double-whammy of limited natural resources and a fertility rate that has fallen below replacement level – struggles to forge for itself a national identity, fingers are pointed adamantly at the influx of “foreign talent”. (See: “Singapore: A Nation Under Siege – From Within”)
Costs of living are skyrocketing, the wheels are coming off of the once-dependable public transport system, a widening wealth gap is leaving more Singaporeans disillusioned and disenfranchised… Perhaps, the image of crude profanities aimed at the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), smeared in red paint across the rooftop of a HDB block in Toa Payoh, one of Singapore’s oldest housing estates, speaks a thousand words: for some Singaporeans, the unhappiness has gone through the roof.
The government, though, cannot be accused of lack of trying.
For example, Singapore Budget 2014 was one of the most generous in the nation’s history, designed to ease the burden off its less well-off citizens. (See: “Can Singapore Budget 2014 Help Bridge the Gap in the “World’s Most Expensive City”?”)
At the same time, the government has also unveiled a Progressive Wage Model (PWM), Singapore’s version of a minimum wage, to be implemented for low-wage workers in the cleaning and security industries. (See: “Not the Singapore National Minimum Wage”)
That well-meaning move, however, brings about a new set of problems.
To date, only 15 per cent of some 900 cleaning firms have received their license to operate under the new wage system. While the remaining cleaning companies have until September to get their licences, Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan was quoted as saying he expects the number of cleaning firms to drop to “several hundred”.
Economic reality bites as Singapore grapples with what it means to have a minimum wage and less foreign labour: maybe some jobs will disappear entirely. And maybe Singaporeans will finally have to clean up after themselves at food centres.
Indeed, Singapore is a nation at the crossroads. We cannot have our cake and eat it. We must choose. Will it be Singaporean-first, Singapore Inc last?
As The Establishment Post editor Sharon Snodgrass notes in an earlier article: “It is time to move forward again as a nation ready and willing and confident that Singapore can once again take on the odds and beat them.” (See: “Singapore 2.0: Going through Labour Pains and the Problems of Success”)
Is it possible to be both “happy” and “successful”?
Perhaps, only we can decide if we want to be happy, or successful. Or both.
Read more: Singapore will lose her place among world’s top global cities within 20 years. Whose fault is it? Singapore will lose her place among world?s top global cities within 20 years. Whose fault is it?
Thank you for reading The Establishment Post. Permission to reproduce material under the "fair use" principle is granted PROVIDED a link to the original source material is included with the cited material. The Establishment Post maintains © ownership on
Follow us: @EstabPost on Twitter | TheEstablishmentPost on Facebook
You can help to stop XENO by reporting to the mod.
Singapore Will Lose Her Place Among World’s Top Global Cities Within 20 years. Whose Fault Is It?
Posted by: Jude Chan May 9, 2014 in Business, General, Headlines, Singapore, Spotlight
Top global cities of today, and rising cities of tomorrow.
Singapore’s Southeast Asian neighbours Jakarta, Manila, and Kuala Lumpur will overtake the wealthy island-nation at the top of the list of global cities that are attractive to international companies within 20 years, according to a study by global management consulting firm A. T. Kearney.
Jakarta and Manila top the list of emerging cities that will soon be at the centre of global businesses. Kuala Lumpur was ranked 10th in the Chicago-based firm’s Emerging Cities Outlook (ECO) report.
Singapore, on the other hand, is expected to fall quickly out of favour among global businesses looking to set up headquarters.
A. T. Kearney’s Global Cities Index (GCI) measures the performance of major cities worldwide in business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement. The accompanying ECO examines the potential of cities in low- and middle-income countries in improving their future global positioning.
Jakarta and Manila, boosted by giant leaps in human capital and healthcare quality, are set to be catapulted to the top of the world’s global cities in less than two decades despite issues of widespread poverty and infrastructural shortcomings the countries currently face.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s meteoric rise as an economic powerhouse achieved in the remarkably short span of just under 50 years since the nation’s independence, looks to be fizzling out and hurtling towards a black hole.
Xenophobia has crept into the country, with a section of Singaporeans increasingly agitated over the government’s hearty immigration policies. Even as the young nation – facing the double-whammy of limited natural resources and a fertility rate that has fallen below replacement level – struggles to forge for itself a national identity, fingers are pointed adamantly at the influx of “foreign talent”. (See: “Singapore: A Nation Under Siege – From Within”)
Costs of living are skyrocketing, the wheels are coming off of the once-dependable public transport system, a widening wealth gap is leaving more Singaporeans disillusioned and disenfranchised… Perhaps, the image of crude profanities aimed at the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), smeared in red paint across the rooftop of a HDB block in Toa Payoh, one of Singapore’s oldest housing estates, speaks a thousand words: for some Singaporeans, the unhappiness has gone through the roof.
The government, though, cannot be accused of lack of trying.
For example, Singapore Budget 2014 was one of the most generous in the nation’s history, designed to ease the burden off its less well-off citizens. (See: “Can Singapore Budget 2014 Help Bridge the Gap in the “World’s Most Expensive City”?”)
At the same time, the government has also unveiled a Progressive Wage Model (PWM), Singapore’s version of a minimum wage, to be implemented for low-wage workers in the cleaning and security industries. (See: “Not the Singapore National Minimum Wage”)
That well-meaning move, however, brings about a new set of problems.
To date, only 15 per cent of some 900 cleaning firms have received their license to operate under the new wage system. While the remaining cleaning companies have until September to get their licences, Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan was quoted as saying he expects the number of cleaning firms to drop to “several hundred”.
Economic reality bites as Singapore grapples with what it means to have a minimum wage and less foreign labour: maybe some jobs will disappear entirely. And maybe Singaporeans will finally have to clean up after themselves at food centres.
Indeed, Singapore is a nation at the crossroads. We cannot have our cake and eat it. We must choose. Will it be Singaporean-first, Singapore Inc last?
As The Establishment Post editor Sharon Snodgrass notes in an earlier article: “It is time to move forward again as a nation ready and willing and confident that Singapore can once again take on the odds and beat them.” (See: “Singapore 2.0: Going through Labour Pains and the Problems of Success”)
Is it possible to be both “happy” and “successful”?
Perhaps, only we can decide if we want to be happy, or successful. Or both.
Read more: Singapore will lose her place among world’s top global cities within 20 years. Whose fault is it? Singapore will lose her place among world?s top global cities within 20 years. Whose fault is it?
Thank you for reading The Establishment Post. Permission to reproduce material under the "fair use" principle is granted PROVIDED a link to the original source material is included with the cited material. The Establishment Post maintains © ownership on
Follow us: @EstabPost on Twitter | TheEstablishmentPost on Facebook
