The article cited above is here and goes on to discuss the Free Trade Agreement reached after two years of working on it between Singapore and China.
Singapore is a fascinating experiment that has remained ahead of its time in being a successful, let's say a terribly successful, city state when compared to the other current sovereign city states of the World - Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City. Today, Dubai and other Gulf megalopolis are attempting to build their "Singapore". Other close competitors to Singapore (non-sovereign) city states are Hong Kong and Macau, perhaps City of London.
Click here to read about some inspiring quantitative details on Singapore from The World Fact Book, a small place with a population that is less than that of Denmark.
The FTA between Singapore and China will resolve/cover some of the sticking points as cited in the article:
"... the deal covers trade in goods, rules of origin, trade remedies, trade in services, movement of persons, investment, customs procedures, technical barriers to trade, sanitary measures and economic cooperation."
At a population of approximately 4.5 million, $62 billion in trade with China shows that Singapore's strengths cover more than manufacturing. Here is an example of what Singapore was thinking and doing about four years ago - unrestricted research for bioscientists. With such foresight, I believe Singapore will continue to lead all sovereign and non-sovereign city states of the World for at least half if not all of the 21st Century.
No comments:
Post a Comment