British invested in the island and by 1890, it became the global center for rubber export — this led to a rapid increase in immigrant population – half being Chinese.
While WWI didn’t affect Singapore much, Japan defeated the British forces in the region in WWII and took control of Singapore.
Eventually, Japan was defeated by the U.S and its allies and thus Singapore was returned to the British but most of its infrastructure was now destroyed — this led to food shortage, crime and violence.
Disappointed with Britain’s inability to defend its colony, Singaporeans campaigned for independence and eventually, an independent Singapore merged with other former British territories to form MalaysiaMalaysia initially was a merger North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore. in 1963.
However, Singapore was soon expelled from Malaysia because of racial strife and ideological differences between the leaders.
Singapore was in a bad shape with more than 25% of its population (500,000 out of 2 million in the 1960s) living in slum conditions.
And then the turnaround began — while the location40% of world maritime trade passes through it. did play a role, one of the key factors was the decision by the leaders not to cut ties with Britain (this gave export opportunities).
While open economy and exports are common today, back then they were looked down upon by developing countries because western economies were seen as exploiters.
Singapore encouraged foreign investment through tax incentives, privatized state-run companies to increase competition, and all this eased the unemploymentIn 1959 the unemployment rate was 14%, by 1970, it had reduced to 4.5%.
The government was kept small (it has 16 ministries; for comparison, India has 57) and strong anti-corruption measures were implemented.
The government also set up an agency to focus on building affordable public housing — it was so successful that in 2008, Singapore was lauded by the United Nations as the only slum-free city in the world.
The income taxes are low, but all the workers are forced to invest about 20% of their salary into a national savings plan — this helps the workers to save while, at the same time, helps the government to fund projects.
It is more than just the economy, however; Singapore promotes meritocracy and has one of the best schooling systems and it features among the top in the world in PISAOrganisation for Cooperation & Development conducts Program for International Student Assessment tests on the 65 countries that make up 90 percent of the world’s economies, and evaluates critical thinking in math, science, and reading among 15-year-olds. Singapore consistently features among the top 3 in the world. tests.
Today, Singapore has the world’s highest percentage of millionaires, with one out of every six households having at least one million US dollars in disposable wealth.This excludes property, businesses, and luxury goods, which if included would increase the number of millionaires, especially as property in Singapore is among the world’s most expensive.
