When globalEDGE released its Market Potential Index (MPI) for 2011, it’s no surprise that Asian countries dominated the top of the rankings. For several years now, countries in Asia have been considered the leading emerging markets in today’s economic climate. This year, Singapore found itself as the highest rated emerging market in the MPI rankings. Looking at Singapore, there are several factors that contributed to its success in this year’s rankings.
As globalization becomes an increasingly important trend in the business world, finding the right country to conduct business in may seem like a difficult task. However, it could be easier than you think. The International Finance Corporation, an organization under the World Bank, develops an index to rank 183 countries based on their ease of doing business. The country rankings depend on nine different percentile categories including: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and closing a business.
Here is the list of the top ten countries:
Singapore's economy grew 38% in the first three months of this year. That is the strongest quarterly growth ever recorded in Singapore's history. The key to this recovery and of the Singapore economy as a whole is the manufacturing industry. Healthcare and electronics are the two biggest sectors for this industry in Singapore. Many companies that produce high-tech medical devices are looking to expand into China. China is a huge potential market as they grow and are looking for these high-tech equipments with their increased buying power.
Are you hedging your bets in this economy? Singapore is! A recent blog post triggered some curiousity about how the country is expanding. The country has permitted the development of a casino which has been designed to attract tourists from around the world. With an eye for expanding its economic base, the country is proceeding cautiously into relatively uncharted territory. This new development demonstrates an effort to bring in new money to the country, while attempting to maintain the clean and safe image Singapore has worked hard to build.
Singapore has grown tremendously in the last few decades. They have one of the highest population densities of any country in the world. The Singapore government has devoted large amounts of time and money to urban planning to make this a possibility. They have used urban planning to make them globally competitive and increase their economic potential. Not only this, but they have also built an extremely environmentally friendly city. This makes their expertise in urban planning even more appealing. Now, they are looking to share that expertise with other cities around the world.
A recent report by the Boston Consulting Group which measures the government policies and corporate performance most encouraging to innovation has Singapore as the number one global leader of innovation, followed by South Korea at number two. Former innovation leaders from the west such as the United States and Germany dropped to numbers eight and nineteen, respectively. What exactly has contributed to this?