不靠石油不靠地！新加坡如何用“全球节点”战略躺赚？

In low and middle-income countries, the improvement was even more impressive.

GDP per capita grew almost 29 times – from US$196 in 1970 to more than US$5,600 in 2023.

Now, the brief facts and figures that I have just outlined show that the global division of labour has been a key driver of progress for all countries.

I was in Doha back in 2001 for the launch of the WTO’s Doha Round of trade negotiations.

Unfortunately, in these 24 years, the Doha Round has made no progress.

Instead, we are regressing – with trade wars growing in intensity, even among countries with Free Trade Agreements.

Tariffs are being weaponised to pursue non-economic objectives, and trade and other economic agreements are being upended abruptly.

While the logic and evidence of free trade is clear, the politics of trade dominate policy direction.

In fact, at the university where I studied economics, the Economics Faculty was referred to as the Department of Political Economy.

It is a fitting recognition that economic rationality is circumscribed by political calculations.

For Singapore to maintain our success and prosperity, we must stay open and carve a role for ourselves in global supply chains, including in new and emerging areas.

Today, trade remains at over three times our GDP.

Our network of 27 Free Trade Agreements enables our businesses to enter markets far larger than Singapore’s domestic market. I am glad that we had the foresight to pursue this policy.

For our SMEs, in particular, these FTAs help to unlock opportunities for them to be part of foreign companies’ supply chains, and in growth regions like ASEAN, Asia and even Latin America.

We continue to grow by establishing collaborations and complementarities with businesses around the world.

Management guru Peter Drucker once wrote that organisations make strengths productive and weaknesses irrelevant.

His basic point is each individual has strengths and weaknesses.

Through collaboration, executives could build complementary strengths for stronger organisations.

And the same can be said for businesses, economies and countries.

Given Singapore’s limitations in land and population size, we cannot realistically produce everything we need on our own.

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