Introduction
The Republic of Singapore celebrated its 42 years of independence in year 2007. Situated at the southern tip of Malaysia, Singapore currently holds a population of 4.68 million as of June 2007. At 704.0km2, it is ranked 4th in the world for its population density. During the past four decades, the economy as measured by real Gross Domestic Product (GDP), multiplied by over 20 times (Ghesquiere, 2007, p.11). As a small and extremely open economy, Singapore long term survival is very much dependent on the ability to maintain its viable position and remain afloat in the sea of global competition (Mun Heng et al, 1998, p.14).
The discussion of this article (extracted from “The Straits Times” on 29th Dec 2007) focus on the low employment rate, booming of property and stock markets, inflation as well as the economic growth of Singapore concluding the year of 2007.
Economic growth of Singapore
Quoting from Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong in the National Rally 2006, he said that “to sustain growth and vitality in our economy, we need a growing population in Singapore with talents in every field.” This is due to the fact that Singapore has no natural resources and the only thing we have is people. In order to sustain growth in our economy, we have to make full use and advantage of our human resources. There is no doubt that Singapore cabinet of ministers drafted out excellent plan for Singapore's future, built spacious public housing, provides highly subsidised yet quality education and healthcare as well as setting up extensive and highly efficient infrastructure.
According to Ghesquiere (2007, p.21), there are four main sources that account for Singapore’s impressive economic growth. The first is the buildup of th...
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...0 percent for the year (DBS Group Research, 2007).
Conclusion
What goes up must come down, but not necessarily at the same rate. With the growing concern over the US sub prime crisis, banks have got more cautious about lending money. However, if the US economy sneezes, the world economy catches a cold. If the US economy runs into recession, no other country can escape the impact. Singapore economy makes the city vulnerable to the proceeding events happened in other countries. The Asian financial crisis, September 11 terrorist attack and the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) are some of the leading examples. With the slump in US property prices and retail sales, high employment rate, the stock market is expected to plunge due to the region wide sell-off. The world’s largest economy is could go into a recession, affecting world wide stock markets.
Mid September 2008 saw a significant change for the Australian economy, with the collapse of the Lehman Brothers triggering the Global Financial Crisis. The Global Financial Crisis was characterised by a tightening in the availability of money from overseas markets and resulting in governments having to intervene to maintain market stability. The Australian economy and its leaders generated considerable discussion about the prospect of a global recession, while most expected the financial crisis would have a major impact on the Australian economy, a factor that was not considered was the immediacy of its effects. The December quarter of 2008, saw business stocks devalue by $3.4 billion, the largest fall on record. In addition, there was a considerable softening in property prices, resulting in many companies/people having too much debt vs. too little wealth. With this, consumer confidence plummeted which in turn deteriorated consumption. Throughout the month of September and into October, the financial crisis spread from the United States to Europe, and all around the global economy, with economies contracting in growth.
Post the era of World War I, of all the countries it was only USA which was in win win situation. Both during and post war times, US economy has seen a boom in their income with massive trade between Europe and Germany. As a result, the 1920’s turned out to be a prosperous decade for Americans and this led to birth of mass investments in stock markets. With increased income after the war, a lot of investors purchased stocks on margins and with US Stock Exchange going manifold from 1921 to 1929, investors earned hefty returns during this time epriod which created a stock market bubble in USA. However, in order to stop increasing prices of Stock, the Federal Reserve raised the interest rate sof loanabel funds which depressed the interest sensitive spending in many industries and as a result a record fall in stocks of these companies were seen and ultimately the stock bubble was finally burst. The fall was so dramatic that stock prices were even below the margins which investors had deposited with their brokers. As a reuslt, not only investor but even the brokerage firms went insolvent. Withing 2 days of 15-16 th October, Dow Jones fell by 33% and the event was referred to Great Crash of 1929. Thus with investors going insolvent, a major shock was seen in American aggregate demand. Consumer Purchase of durable goods and business investment fell sharply after the stock market crash. As a result, businesses experienced stock piling of their inventories and real output fell rapidly in 1929 and throughout 1930 in United States.
The events that unfolded on September 11th and the days that followed also profoundly effected the stock market. It is the purpose of this paper is to examine what happened to both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ after September 11th and how it is similar to events such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Gulf War in terms of how the stock market experienced a blow and bounced back after a while.
Comparing the 1929 Market Crash and the Current Position in the Stock Market During the 1920's, the North American economy was roaring, but this decade would eventually be put to a stop. In October of 1929, the stock market began its steepest decline to this date in history. Many stock market traders and economists believe and pray that it was a one-shot episode never to be repeated. On the other hand, many financial analysts and other economists believe that the current stock markets are in place to repeat the calamitous errors of the 1920's. In this paper, I will analyze the causes of the crash and discuss the possibilities of it re-occurring.
Today Malaysia and Singapore are geographically the same rich tropical and dynamic economy, with the same geographic problems. A health problem, with some endemic malaria, has been checked, which transformed their economy and way of life by understanding their environment. Almost eradicating malaria from their land shows what an understanding of geography and history can do.
The recession was preceded by the global boom of 2002 - 2007, which resulted in risky investment decisions by individual companies, which eventually left the markets teetering on weak financial supports. Cracks in the over-optimistic market started developing, first with the collapse of individual companies, including Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, but those cracks quickly spread to the housing market and soon impacted the entire U.S. market. At the same time, markets all around the world tumbled, wiping out trillions of dollars in value for global investors. In the U.S., unemployment shot up by 5%, while the S&P 500 lost up to 40% of its value in one year. The events of 2008 and the realization of Firm-specific and Market Risk left investors with few safe-havens to protect their investments (International Monetary Fund,
In turn everything in the present and the future is judged through the stocks as they hold a high importance in industrialized economies showing the healthiness of said countries economy. As investing discourages consumer spending over all decreases, it lead...
Singapore as a country has had various transformations throughout its history, however the period 1950 and 1970 was quite critical. Much of these changes had a lot to do with the development of trade and manufacturing. This is without forgetting the financial sector where the intention was to come up with a financial hub that could be used in economic development. Looking at the case of Singapore, we would say that it is a productive economy with a very high market competition. This observation has been further clarified by the Swiss International Institute for Management Development, going with their report that they released in the year 2001 (Chellaraj & Mattoo, 2009). In this study, we intend to evaluate the case of political economy of development in Singapore and examine the tensions between the state and various economic institutions. In additions to examining this institution, we would also like to examine how these variables have contributed towards the attainment of favorable growth rates and economic prosperity.
Comparative advantage means that an industry, firm, country or individual are able to produce goods and services at a lower opportunity cost than others which are also producing the same goods and services. Also, in order to be profitable, the number in exports must be higher than the number in import. From the diagram we seen above, Singapore is seen to have a comparative advantage in some services. The services are Transport, Financial, business management, maintenance & Repair and Advertising & Market Research, etc. These export services to other countries improve the balance of payment. On the other side, Singapore is seen to have a comparative disadvantage in some services. The services are Travel, Telecommunications, Computer & Information,
We will find out how Singapore manage to raises it economic development in such rapid growth aftermath of war and separation.
Janus Corporate Solutions. (2011) Introduction to Singapore’s economy. Guide me Singapore. Retrieved April 4, 2011 from http://www.guidemesingapore.com/relocation/introduction/singapores-economy
Following the trend of economy, it is important to investors to understand that strong economy creates strong stock market. To elaborate further, as stock prices are increased by current and future expectations of earnings, thus without a strong economy it would be difficult for the companies to increase and sustain their earnings (Kong 2013). The economy development is usually calculated using the gross domestic product of a countries. On the other hand, a change is the stock price can also cause a major impact to the consumers and investors directly. Hence, a loss in confidence by investors can cause a downturn in consumer spending in the long term, which will also affect the economy’s output (Aysen 2011). The graph below shows the relationship of stock market price (KLCI) and the GDP of Malaysia in 2009. Thus, it can be concluded that the economy and the stock market has a positive relationship.
Financial crises have influenced the os of financial markets in past. The most important the Great Depression in 1929-30, the 1970s inflation failures and the banking difficulties in the 1990s led to problems in the financial markets causing serious disturbance. The recent financial crisis which became known in 2007, though the roots were implanted much earlier, has been the worst situation financial markets have ever faced.
Singapore’s deposit interest rate in year 2012 is 0.1% and lending interest rate is 5.4%. In Singapore, doing investment is better than save the money in bank because of the low interest rate. The inflation rate of Singapore based on consumer prices is 4.5% and 2.4% for year 2012 and 2013 respectively.
In addition, after the 2011 Singapore general election, the government of Singapore has greatly changed its economic approach and it seems to be better for the economy of Singapore so far. On the other hand, measures have also been taken to cool down the property market which has constantly affected inflation rates, also tightened the foreign labour policies that constantly influence the labour market and unfold its impacts onto the Singapore’s economy as it comes back in one round. The unemployment rate in Singapore has been maintaining itself as being one of the lowest numbers in the world. The majority of Singapore’s labour force is well educated and highly skilled. Even primary education is a must for all citizens (Economywatch.com, 2010). In addition, for the year 2010, Singapore had the 8th largest current account balance in the world at US$49.454 billion. To conclude, Singapore has come so far from its sunken economy since independence in 1965 to become a booming and prosperous economy that it is