Friday, January 29, 2010

Singapore regains top spot of most globalised economy in 2009

Singapore has regained its ranking as the most globalised economy in 2009, beating economic giants such as the United States, China and Japan.

This is based on the latest Globalisation Index, compiled by Ernst & Young and the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The study covered 60 of the world’s largest countries and had polled 520 senior business executives, with in-depth interviews conducted with 30 senior executives and high-level experts.

The index measures a country’s degree of globalisation relative to their gross domestic product. It is based on five criteria – trade openness, capital movements, exchanges of technology and ideas, labour movements and cultural integration.

Singapore has been ranked number one since 2003, but it lost out to Hong Kong in 2008 and came in second.

In regaining its top spot, Singapore has high scores for its trade openness and labour movement, but lost out to Hong Kong on capital movements and cultural integration.

This time, Hong Kong was edged into second spot, with Switzerland in seventh place, while the United States came in at 24th in the index ranking.

Ernst & Young Country Managing Partner Steven Phan said: “There was greater movement of capital and finance in Hong Kong in terms of foreign direct investments (FDI), where as Singapore has done relatively well in the areas of investment protection schemes and creating a level playing field for all enterprises.

“Singapore is number one in terms of the movement of goods and services relative to all the other 60 countries we surveyed, so this is really the imports and the exports relative to the size of our small domestic market. So that was a strong indicator, but among the other four criteria as well, we are consistently among the top.”

Source: Channel News Asia, 29 Jan 2010

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