Foreign investment and industrialisation in Singapore

Abstract

Singapore has faced extremely difficult economic conditions in the 1960s, and these will be exacerbated by the withdrawal of the United Kingdom military establishment during the next few years. Foreign investment can play an important role in Singapore's economy and at the same time make profits for the foreign investors. This book explores the problems involved. The aim of the surveys conducted by Dr Hughes and her colleagues during 1966 and 1967 was to see whether the incentives offered by Singapore to foreign investors were suitable and effective, to evaluate the contribution made by foreign investors to the development of manufacturing in Singapore, and to highlight the problems they faced. The most surprising finding of the book is that direct financial incentives to foreign investors are unnecessary. Singapore's principal attraction to outside investors lies in its efficient administration and the provision of public services, while its central geographic situation in Southeast Asia has to some extent offset the smallness of its internal market. The book will be of particular interest to two kinds of reader: manufacturers, administrators, and others concerned with investment in Southeast Asia, and economists everywhere who are studying the economic development of the area, the problems of establishing manufacturing industries in developing countries, and the economics of direct foreign investment.