There are two main aspects of Singapore that I found the most obvious in regard to business and policy. One, as Hong Kong merges with China, Singapore advances as a financial and industrial powerhouse. Two, Singapore is a very small country, and most of its policies reflect that.
China, due to the pandemic and its closed border/trading policies has fallen drastically as a commerce center. Hong Kong had stood apart as the Asian financial powerhouse, with a developed stock market and economically friendly policies. However, it is currently merging with China. As such, it is adopting a lot of the issues associated with Chinese commerce and policy. This change has made way for the rise of Singapore. Many of the businesses we talked with stated that Singapore is either on par or has surpassed Hong Kong as a financial institution. More foreign businesses are seeking investments in Singapore as it is recognized as a more steady Asian country to do business in.
Singapore is half the size of San Antonio with a much larger population. It is a water-locked island with few natural resources. As such, it has come up with some creative ideas and policies to help conserve what they have. Like the car policy, I mentioned in my earlier blog, all of these policies are tailored toward the struggles this company faces. Many of them sounded strange to me at first, as an American, they sounded like an invasion of freedom. Singapore is a ?controlled democracy?, so while there are elections, the government is still very much in control of the rules. However, there is reportedly very little corruption in the government, and almost every policy I was made aware of makes a lot of sense as a solution to the problem it was meant to address. While, personally I would never want to pay as much as I would for a car in Singapore, many of their policies are incredibly clever. Many focus on environmental impact, or on space conservation. I think a lot of these policies could apply to large city life in America, or even in companies when thinking about expansion or their environmental impact.
I had a lot of fun in Singapore and learned a lot. There was a lot of good food? I might be addicted to Indian food now?and some amazing sights to see. We had insightful company visits and really got to take a peak into the intelligent workings of Singapore.
