ABSTRACT
Singapore and Hong Kong are both now high-income economies and face similar challenges of structural change. They both present themselves as regional service centres and both face challenges in making the transition to that role. Although Hong Kong has made a sharper adjustment to the new external environment and experienced recession in the first half of 1998, both seem to have weathered the financial storms of East Asia better than most. Why is this? Are there lessons for other East Asian economies in this experience? These are the questions on which we focus in this chapter.
