ABSTRACT
Singapore has long been widely recognized as possibly the most successful case of development among emerging economies in the 20th century. When Singapore and other Asian Tigers embarked on their export manufacturing development strategy, they were individually and collectively small players in a world market where there were few other open economy competitors with the same market comparative advantage and policies to develop sector-specific competitive advantage. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth was slow and unemployment high at independence in mid-1960s, when the city of 1.5 million was already middle-income. The Singapore government is nothing if not responsive to the developmental and political challenges it faces, and is finally embarking on policies to limit foreign labour dependence, increase productivity and increase social subsidies for Singaporeans, even if it means slower GDP growth and painful restructuring. Many lessons have been, and continue to be, drawn from Singapore's economic development experience for other emerging economies; they range from the general to the specific.
