ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the productive potential of the Singapore economy and with the challenges that must be faced to unlock this potential. It examines multi-faceted issue of productivity growth, giving special attention to the many implications arising from the economy’s labour-constrained nature. Singapore’s economy has entered into a new phase of its growth, centred increasingly on an ability to be innovative in a broad class of industries that can provide the kind of productivity-led growth that will help the city-state better secure its future. Singapore’s economic development success has been a clear product of strategic thinking and a top-down approach to most aspects of economic and city planning. Long-range and integrated planning is a defining feature of Singapore’s development. By the late 1980s, the Singapore economy had already built up substantial capabilities in capital-intensive manufacturing industries such as chemicals, electronics and precision engineering, as well as in logistics and transportation services, and in the media and information industries.
