OpinionSingapore’s blueprint for economic success: plan, but be prepared to adapt
External shocks and changing domestic conditions often render plans unfeasible, so being agile is a better policy
It is quite understandable why an observer would view Singapore as a planned economy. After all, signs of order are all around. Nearly 80 per cent of Singaporeans live in public housing; the city is well-designed, green, and manicured. Clearly, this is a city that has been meticulously planned and engineered for decades.
Above all, Singapore’s politics is carefully managed by a ruling party that has been in power since 1959, and political dissent is often constrained by a paternalistic state.
But the idea of the Singapore economy as a top-down, dirigiste and planned one is a caricature at best. While various government agencies in Singapore engage in planning (loosely defined), the city state has never had five or 10-year plans, nor set production targets the way the Eastern bloc countries and China did.