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Singapore Most Competitive Asian Economy

Singapore Most Competitive Asian Economy
Singapore Most Competitive Asian Economy

Singapore has been ranked the most competitive economy in Asia for the second year running, according to a report released by the Boao Forum for Asia, an annual economic forum to be held in China’s southern Hainan island next week.

The city state has claimed top spot for four out of the five years since 2011 that the annual report has been released with 2013 the only exception that Hong Kong jumped the Republic to the top spot.

Dr Wang Jun, a researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said at a press conference yesterday in Beijing that Singapore’s efficient administrative services, convenient business environment and world-class infrastructure lifted it to its first placing among the 37 Asian economies surveyed.

The other Asian tigers – Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan -  took second, third, and fourth places, while China came in ninth, unchanged from its ranking last year.

  Exports Slump

Singapore’s exports in February fell more than expected as momentum in the global economy remained modest and as a slowdown in China took a heavy toll, adding to expectations that the central bank may ease monetary policy next month.

Non-oil domestic exports (NODX) slid 9.7 percent in February from a year earlier, trade agency International Enterprise Singapore said on Tuesday in a statement. That compared with a 0.4 percent contraction forecast in a Reuters poll, and 4.3 percent growth in January.

The disappointing performance in February was partially due to the Lunar New Year holidays, which fell in January in 2014. On a month-on-month seasonally adjusted basis, NODX declined 9.4 percent in February, again missing a forecast of 0.7 percent slide.

 

Financialtribune.com