Singapore: The Lionized City

Abstract

Singapore (from the Malay words Singa Pura, meaning Lion City) is one of the most successful economic growth stories in history. GDP expanded at an annual average of 8 per cent between 1960 and 2004, contracting in only four of those years and at times averaging double- digit levels for half a decade (Peebles and Wilson 1996: 43; Ministry of Trade and Industry 1998–2005). Growth in per capita income, shown in Figure 7.1, placed Singapore among the top five developing countries during the two decades after it separated from the United Kingdom in 1959. By 2004 GDP per capita was US$25,191, among the richest 30 countries, having expanded tenfold in real terms since independence. Unemployment and inflation have been low and stable since the 1970s. Economic growth was so great that Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s autocratic prime minister for the first 25 years and now ‘Minister Mentor’, titled the second volume of his memoirs ‘From Third World to First’ (Lee 2000).