This evening, an Indian tourist from Tamil Naidu walked into our Visitors' Centre.
After a few mundane queries about power sockets in the airport, he asked me a question that took me by surprise: in a world economy where India's software engineers alone are 5 times the population of Singapore, how will a resource-poor Singapore survive in the future? I was taken aback, and am still a little.
We had a short debate, where I found myself less and less convincing. I am now hoping I was lacking conviction only due to my lack of knowledge, and not because of the truth in his question. I will perhaps have to do a little more research into this, but my faith in Singapore's economy has definitely been shaken.
He went on to substantiate using examples from the financial sector. Why would any global bank like Citi, for instance, find talent in Singapore when it can get a selection of any kind of talent from China and India for half the price? What would make Singapore's human capital any more special than an Indian or a Chinese? A Singaporean's competitive advantage is slowly disappearing as the millions of Indians and Chinese close the gap.
Indians and Chinese are graduating by the droves from the top universities in the world; I recalled seeing countless Indian students wearing sweatshirts of Cornell and the likes of American colleges flying from Bombay airport just 2 weeks back. A Singaporean's bilingual asset is slowly being eroded as learning languages are facilitated by information technology and the Internet. The Singaporean's diligence and efficiency is no doubt still globally respected, but my question is for how long? How long more before these competitive edges we blunted by the pace of growth in India and China?
Again, I must spend more effort in looking at the possibilities that Singapore's economy may continue to grow in the future, in a global milieu that has to deal with the reality of the Goliaths of India and China. Whilst other countries may counter this Chindian rise with their own natural resources, Singapore has none to fall back on.
Is anyone interested in joining me in pondering this fearful but necessary question? Do drop me a line if this hits you as well, and see if we can be part of a solution.
Uncle T
1 comments:
just to put things in a national perspective for the Indian tourist, if we view any profession as a service provider, then it is the percentage per population figure that is the key figure to determine access. i dont have figures, but for the example of software engineers, i think we have a higher proportion serving the population here, same for top uni grads. so in terms of keeping singapore running, i do not forsee a problem.
the problem comes with achieving continued growth and maintaining its position in the world economy, as u have pointed out. i think firstly, we must ask the question of whether achieving continued growth is the only path to happiness for a nation's people. strong research has shown that beyond a basic level, economic growth has no correlation with happiness.
if we come to a conclusion that yes, it is still important for singapore, then do we get to your question on how can we sustain this growth, and create opportunities for singaporeans in this new world. i can think of 2 obvious strategies: in a world where big powers see themselves as competitors, then it will leave room for small nations to broker themselves between both competitors, as mediators in all objectivity. in a world where all the big powers are happy colluders, then small nations will have to collude themselves, and till now, i still think SEA is the way to go. and then i always go back to the old point that it is sincerity and honesty that will form such collusion. i do realise i am skipping alot of thought processes here this is as good a sketch as i can give now =)
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