Trade employment and industrialisation in Singapore

The successful economic, industrial and export growth of newly industrialising countries such as Singapore has attracted the attention of planners and policy makers in developing countries who want to learn how this success was achieved, and of policy-makers, entrepreneurs and trade unionists in industrialised countries concerned about the increased competitiveness of many products from such countries and the conditions under which they are being produced.

The Government's pragmatic policies and a high level of foreign investment have been crucial to Singapore's successful economic development. Interventionist policies have also been used to provide for basic needs and a high level of public services. Between 1960 and 1982 average income increased by a factor of almost ten in local currency, and even more in United States dollars: a very impressive record that few (if any) countries can challenge. The Government believes that this record could not or would not have been achieved without limiting the range of personal choices. Choices such as where to live, how many children to have and what to study at school and university have increasingly been influenced by govern ment rules and incentives; but this influence, the authors say, is widely regarded as necessary for social order and progress.

The countries studied in the Employment, Trade and North-South Co-operation Project, carried out within the ILO's programme on the international division of labour, include Brazil, Cameroon, the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Singapore, Tunisia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Publications on several of these countries are, together with two final volumes on the project as a whole, in preparation.