NOVEMBERASIA BUSINESS OUTLOOK9HOW DID SINGAPORE RISE UP TO BE A GLOBAL TRADE HUB?What exactly is needed for a nation to prosper? Is it large amounts of tax money? A large population? Large quantities of oil reserves? Or a fertile land with lot of minerals? What would be the situation of countries which had neither of these? The obvious answer would be the country will be in poverty which would find meeting even the basic needs of their people difficult. What if there was a country in the map right now without any of the above features in their geography but is wealthier than most of the countries with all the above characteristics?Singapore is the 20th century story of `rags to riches' which grew from a poverty ridden third world country to an industrial power house of the Asian continent. What did Singapore do that makes it so prosperous? Let us observe how they got here. Singapore was not always the free market utopia it is today, it was a former British colony which was heavily impacted by World War II which resulted in lots of damaged infrastructure. It gained Independence in 1959 from the British and again in 1965 when Malaysia signed the Independence of Singapore agreement. Lee Kuan Yew became the first elected prime minister of Singapore and took the reins in building the island nation and was the key figure responsible in making the nation the mammoth it is today.What Helped Singapore Become A Success in the Early Years?Shelter is a basic necessity, along with food and water, lacking in any of these cannot allow an individual to progress in their life, let alone the country, so one of the first undertakings of the newly formed government was a proposal for public housing facilities. This was desperately needed as the nation was facing a huge homelessness crisis. This initiative was a huge success which housed nearly the entire population and successfully allowed the people to endeavor in employment and skilling themselves. Even today 80 percent of their population lives in public housing facilities which are meticulously designed to blend in people of different socio-economic and racial background allowing the immigrants to seamlessly blend in with the people of different nationalities fostering an environment which allows everyone to get along well, thus enforcing social stability.To help people buy these housing facilities, the government allows them to use money from the central provident fund, a saving fund that all working class citizens have to pay into, being fundamental to the wealth of its citizens, with each citizen having their own personal savings account, as Warren Buffet once said "Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving". The fund is mandatory, which means citizens have to save whether they like it or not, and the contributions aren't small either, these savings can later be used for your pension, housing, medical expenses and even university education for yourself or a family member, the returns on these savings is very attractive too, this explains why the nation has one of the highest savings rate in the world that's over a staggering 53 percent.Foreign Investment, Blessing or a Curse?Singapore's success story is basically made up of foreign investments; over 70 percent of the country's total output is made up of foreign companies trading within IMPRESSIONS
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