1. They have a shared history of colonial pasts; with British rule extending up to hundred years, setting the foundation of their political systems. Both Singapore and Hong Kong inherited British democracy and integrated it with the society.
2. They’re both global financial centers and used to be Asian tiger economies. With similar size of the economy, two cities perched at the top of the economic freedom scale. Both places are enjoying the fastest economic growth among developed regions
3. Though cosmopolitan in outlook and embodying a spirit of east meets west, they’re both ethnically Chinese societies and affected heavily …show more content…
Singapore and Hong Kong started both from labor-intensive industries in the 1950s and achieved the capital accumulation. But limited natural resources and scarce supply of labor signified the maturity this development model. As a result, Singapore government pushed corporates to transform towards higher value-added service using his exclusive positions on Malacca Strait, the government took advantages of energy transportations and rolled our wage correction policy to induce efficient use of labors in the 1960s. Key industries in this period were oil refining, oil exploration equipment manufacturing, shipbuilding, electrical manufacturing, precision instrument engineering. By the late 1970s, Singapore's refining industry accounted for more than 30% of the manufacturing output and has become one of the world's three major refining centers. During this period, Singapore successfully achieved industrial development and the economy structures started shifting towards capital-intensive industries. Entering 1990s, Singapore just recovered from the first recession caused by weak demand and fundamental economic problems …show more content…
The tertiary industry in Singapore is based on the sequential upgrading of manufacturing to capital and technology, having a clear local service target. In fact, even in 2011, Singapore's industrial output value still accounted for 26.6% of GDP. Hong Kong has been unable to develop and upgrade its productive service industry due to the massive relocation of manufacturing industries in the 1970s. Services industries can only focus on the traditional aspects of international trade and financial intermediation. In 2010, Hong Kong's manufacturing industry accounted for only 1.7% of GDP and the service industry accounted for 92.9% of the total. Within the service sector, the import and export trade, wholesale and retail accounted for 23.8%, while finance and insurance accounted for 16.3% , both accounting for nearly half of the service sector's output. In addition, with the phasing out and transfer of outdated production capacity in the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong's traditional service economy also faces a risk of hollowing