Singapore – A Country Study is a look at the development of Singapore and how it rose to become the economic giant of Asia in two generations.
Every citizen of every post-colonial country must digest its contents to understand what it takes to build a vibrant nation, and use their knowledge to hold their governments accountable.
Singapore, a small island at the tip of the Malayan Peninsula grew from a British colonial outpost into Southeast Asia ’s financial and commercial capital .
How could such a place achieve so much in just two generations? The familiar answer, of course, is that it took leadership — not just from visionaries such as “founding father” Lee Kuan Yew, who served as prime minister from 1959 to 1990, but also from the city’s entrepreneurs and corporate chiefs. Lee, his successors Goh Chok Tong and Lee Hsien Loong and their teams have carefully planned Singapore’s rise to success. They created business partnerships, led the way in developing the domestic market and took government-linked corporations overseas. And when economic conditions deteriorated, such as during the Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998 and the SARS virus outbreak in 2003, Singapore’s leaders quickly regrouped and retooled the economy to ensure the nation would emerge stronger and more resilient.
“Overall,” said Senior Minister Goh in a speech last year, “I would say that we are on the right track to become a truly global city, yet one that is distinct from others because it is a tropical city where the East truly blends with the West in harmony. We need to build on our strengths and make up for our weaknesses,” he said, appealing for continued focus on sustainable development and environmental and ecological preservation. He also called for a focus on Singapore’s architecture and urban design to create what he termed “a city of distinction.”
Minister Goh said further.
“This means more than just having a few iconic and fanciful buildings. It means treating the whole city as a piece of artwork where the buildings, roads, gardens and so on are but details on a canvas,”
See attached PDF for the entire document.http://www.guyanagraphic.com/sites/default/files/singapore_-_a_country_study.pdf
