Friday, February 16, 2007

Back to the Basic

Singapore has just announced that it will slash corporate income tax (though it plans also to raise GST). Recently Singapore has done the right things to give its economy a boost. It has just deregulated the mail business and allowed gambling (in fact a few casinos are in the works)

No more new industrial policy initiatives, no more grand plans, no more visions.

The principle behind their recent spate of new economic policies is simple: Deregulation and Let the Market do the Work.

My sense is that with continual gobal competition, Singapore will be forced towards further opening up its already quite liberalized economy. There is simply no other options to it and there is nobody else (or nothing else to count on as it is not resource-rich) it can count on except by relying on market forces.

What about HK? Well, look north and there is somebody whom we can always count on. Deregulation, what's the rush?

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