For some of 300 attendees at last Thursday’s Surrey Regional Economic Summit, it likely wasn’t the first time they had heard suggestions that B.C. take lessons in innovation and investment from Singapore, while building stronger bridges with the rest of Asia.
In their April 2010 report examining what B.C. should look like in 2020, the BC Business Council’s Jock Finlayson and Ken Peacock suggested that B.C. become a “Singapore with resources.”
Last Thursday, it was professor Kishore Mahbubani’s turn to direct B.C.’s attention to the tiny island city-state in the Indian Ocean. This time it was during a panel discussion about the changing roles of Asia and North America in the “new economy.”
In an interview the previous day, in which he previewed his talking points at the summit, Mahbubani said B.C. must plan long term for the ongoing global re-alignment that is resulting in Asia’s rise.
“If you want to see a city of the past you go to Paris; if you want to see a city in the present you go to New York; and if you want to see cities of the future you go to Shanghai and Singapore,” said Mahbubani, who is a public policy professor at the National University of Singapore, a former Singaporean ambassador to the United Nations and a former president of the UN’s security council.
Singapore, he noted, has a per-capita income higher than the United Kingdom, yet its economy will grow 15% this year, compared with the roughly 3% growth that most countries with similar GDP will experience. He said that at the height of the recession, in 2008, 2009, when other countries were doling out unemployment benefits, Singapore provided employment benefits, which were incentives for employers to maintain their workforce levels.
And where other countries are questioning where to place investments in innovation on their priority list, Singapore has invested billions of dollars into its biotechnology industry.
Mahbubani acknowledges the geographical and economical differences that make it impossible for Canada to model itself after Singapore, but in examining that city-state, he points out that Asian countries are on the rise and Canada can capitalize on that.
“You look at how Canadian foreign policy is structured, your No. 1 priority is America, your No. 2 priority is Europe,” he noted. “No. 2 should now be Asia.”
That means teaching more Asian languages in schools instead of European languages and facilitating more foreign student exchanges with Asian countries.
Mahbubani noted that B.C., given its Asian population and presence on the Pacific Rim, has a distinct advantage over other provinces when it comes to building ties with Asia.
He noted that Canada has accumulated goodwill over the years in Asia through development work and aid – and it should be taking advantage of that goodwill.
Mahbubani recalled a chat he had with an investor in Singapore who was building a shopping centre in Jakarta, Indonesia. It turned out that the investor was using Vancouver-based architects for the project.
“So Vancouver architects were helping a Singapore investor build a shopping mall in Indonesia – that’s how you get connected,” Mahbubani said,
In their visions of B.C. in 2020, Finlayson and Peacock said that as trade and other connections with Asian markets expand, the province will need to secure its position as a key link between Asia and North America.
In suggesting that B.C become a “Singapore with resources,” Finlayson and Peacock noted that Singapore, which has 4.8 million people, has built its success through access and connections to external markets and suppliers and by focusing on becoming Asia’s premier knowledge-based and high-tech hub.
They noted that Singapore’s wealth is based on exported services, rather than on exported resources or manufactured goods: “Singapore generates up to half a billion dollars a year from the provision of medical and other health services to out-of-country patients, while maintaining universal coverage for its own population at a relatively low cost.” •