Opinion: What should New Zealand replicate from Singapore? And frankly, do we want to?

A snapshot of my thoughts/perspectives after a recent two week trip to Singapore.

Singapore - also known as ‘Lion City’ and ‘Garden City’, has increasingly been in the world's spotlight for a while now - and why wouldn’t they be. A country of just 5.5 million people, on a landmass that is just 0.27% the size of New Zealand (only 18% bigger than Auckland) is a thriving country that in just 50 years since independence, now has a GDP per capita of US$117,000 NZD and a GDP growth rate of 7.6% (2021).?

If you are looking at these statistics as a kiwi, you might be thinking “well if they can do it, why can’t New Zealand?”. And you’re not the only one. I’ve had the exact thoughts since I read this article by Paul Adams in Stuff, titled ‘NZ has fallen behind its peer nations. Here’s why’. Paul goes into examples on hostile tall-poppy culture, inconsistent governance, poor infrastructure for FDI (foreign direct investment) and aspects such as poor immigration policies and significant decreases in education rankings in the last 1-2 decades. Since reading this, I’ve been avidly interested in Singapore, how it’s positioned itself for prosperity and what can New Zealand take from this.?

I’ve recently had the pleasure of visiting Singapore in the format of an offshore hui with the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s Leadership network. Where 14 Kiwi young Kiwi’s across entrepreneurship, venture capital, engineering, urban planning and legal professions visited a number of institutions to understand the city-state more and understand more on New Zealand’s relationship with Singapore. After an itinerary including visits with companies such as Xero, Zespri, Meta and WSP, and discussions with Strategic Futures Office, Urban Redevelopment Authority, Monetary as well as the High Commissioner to Singapore, I asked myself continuously “Can we do more like Singapore to achieve the economic success that they’ve seen, and if so at what cost?’

I’ve attempted looking at it from a number of perspectives; observing past and present tenses to understand the similarities/differences New Zealand has with Singapore, and what Singapore potentially has on its future (intentionally and unintentionally) and are those things that New Zealand wants on its horizon as a country;

Past Tense:

Singapore has a long history of being a trade hub for Asia, given its positioning between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in the South China Sea. Known as Temasek formally, Singapore's history doesn't start in 1819 when Sir Stamford Raffles founded the area, it actually dates back to the 13th century. After numerous centuries as a trading hub for Asia, the city vanished from maps after being burnt down by Portuguese pirates in 1613, given its significance as an important trading port for the Sultanate of Johor. Raffles then came into the picture, establishing a British trading post in 1819, and Singapore began to build its infrastructure that it has risen to today. The country gained independence after WW2 occupation by Japan, and was declared its own independent state in 1965.

The country has a lack of natural resources given it’s small geographical territory, which has created both its core strengths and weaknesses that stand today - it has had to build itself into the trading bloc it has been at various stages over the last millenia, position itself as a gateway to Asia, out of both opportunity and also pure survival instinct.?

Much of the country is built on sand on reclaimed land - which can be marshes etc that need decades to stabilize with sand before being able to be built on. The sand, mostly imported from Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia. This also leads into NZ’s trade relationship with Singapore, tying to a 4P framework, including key exchanges on Security, Trade, Science and Environment. The importance of dialogue to New Zealand's benefit mainly focuses on stability in the surrounding Asia area, economic opportunities for wider Asia via Singapore, and developments in policy and science partnerships. Singapore benefits from New Zealand's partnership in the form of trade agreements (both being international trade heavy countries) and food + energy security. While both have had similar endeavors in the past, and benefited strongly from trade, more cultural issues such as less-progressive policies on LGBTQ, and standards around the migrant working force (e.g. migrant workers pulled in for low-paying construction roles and less than desirable poor living conditions to go with). There is no official minimum wage in Singapore (with the exception of security guards and cleaners), despite the high income per capita, highlighting the inequality overall in the country.?

Present Tense:?

There’s a lot that’s happened in the last 1-2 decades -? as the world changed though, Singapore changed with it. As Asia grew, and namely as China grew, the area has benefited strongly from globalisation of supply-chains (low-cost manufacturing), all the way through to the rise of the middle class across Asia as the area continues to emerge. While Singapore has limited natural resources, there’s an argument to be had that they do have natural positioning as a country in terms of its geographical positioning for trade, something that New Zealand doesn’t have to its advantage. That being said, their success so far is in no way tied to solely chance.

Their high-performance culture and highly-engaged government management of the economy has given rise to the Singapore you see today. High-performers (the so called 1% of achievers) are identified during their schooling curriculum as young as 12 years old to begin getting put into special programs and curriculums to catapult their government career from day one. This is why their Government has such a great track record of execution - as the genuine best people in the country are groomed for public service at a very young age. The country’s investment in education is evident in their recent global rankings across education pillars (1st in math, 2nd in science, and 4th in reading as of 2018). And these have been somewhat consistent over the last decade.

They are also investing heavily in key areas from day one - and are willing to put their money where their mouth is. The country’s smart nation initiatives are a great example of how they’re pushing the market to where it needs to be in order to capitalize on the next big change in global commerce. Policies for rebates on adopting everything from e-invoicing to setting up cloud and AI computing for businesses is heavily subsidized, creating more data touch points in business and therefore society. They have had public wi-fi since 2006.?

Recent geo-political events such as Hong Kong's continued transition into Greater China and the evident policies of this change, the rest of the world have increasingly looked to Singapore as its new financial hub for the area, which is evident in our meetings with regional hubs for Meta, Xero and Zespri in that area.?

Present issues that it faces though, which are immediate opportunities for New Zealand to improve its dialogue are the country’s existing issues with climate and food security. In terms of food self-sufficiency, Singapore is currently only at 5%, hence why the country is such a big importer of food. The country is considered to be increasingly a global leader in the cultivated meat space - a industry that is treated more so as a technology sector more so than a traditional F&B (food and beverage), so therefore isn’t as land intensive and could not only mean that the country is increasingly self-sufficient, but can potentially become an exporter in the space. This is more likely to be a 10 year away timeline, nevertheless something that New Zealand will need to keep in mind given the sector make up as it stands with our 8th largest trade partner globally.

The country relies on oil and liquified gas for 95% of its energy, which also puts it in a tough position moving forward in relation to its ambitious goals to be climate neutral by 2023. Singapore is going all in as part of this change, with a $5 tax being imposed on every metric ton of carbon produced in 2023, but that escalates to $25 in 2024 highlighting the government's seriousness on the topic. The Singapore Government has already signed long-term agreements with both Australia and Laos to import renewable energy (as soon as they’re able to be exported). From the discussions we had during the trip, it sounds like climate-tech is a great opportunity for New Zealand to be partnering deeper with Singapore on, looking at sustainable fuel and transportation options to support their transition, much like what our neighbors Australia are already doing. From what it sounded like in the cultivated meat space during our discussions there, Australia is also taking a more progressive stance to this area.

The future:

Looking ahead at a new age of digital infrastructure (or digi-real as we were told the new reality would be by the Strategic Future office) and a focus on ecosystem resilience (utilizing new food and climate-related technologies to ensure there is enough energy and food domestically) means there is somewhat of a land unknown ahead. This is both in terms of a global future ahead, in addition to how New Zealand and Singapore’s relationship looks like moving forward. Traditional areas for New Zealand that have thrived in the past such as dairy, fruit + vege, and meat may need to evolve, otherwise they’ll become less significant over time.

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However, our country’s leadership in climate technologies, and partnerships in food technology with Singapore and its tertiary institutions may give us the opportunity to thrive in the new world. Singapore becomes increasingly important as a gateway to Asia, and we can use this to our advantage.?

In relation to these trends - a pragmatic, yet medium term foresight team would give us as a country the most insights as to ‘what areas are we missing in terms of where the worlds are going?’ and a hard look at ourselves around “if we can do it, do we have a true competitive advantage in this space? And are we in a position where we’re not already behind the pack?’.

New Zealand already has a working relationship with the Strategic Futures office (Singapore’s think tank that reports directly to the Prime Ministerand touched on a few of these parts) to highlight important trends, which in line with the above raises a question;

Do we need a New Zealand equivalent of the Strategic Futures team? Or do we just need to look at what Singapore does in terms of how to pursue resilience in relation to these trends??

I think yes, but utilizing dialogue in the same way our governments partner on a lot of trade agreements and bi-lateral exchanges between the trade-reliant countries. The same trends impact both countries at a higher level, but how we adopt and implement policies to adapt to these will be distinctly different. Holistic scenario planning is not something that requires decades of succession planning by governments to implement, so we should be looking at doing more of this, and fast. When looking between the two countries - it brings me back to the ‘what can we replicate as a country in New Zealand?’, and I believe a more thorough approach to succession on holistic trend planning means that while our democratic government system may mean different policies are implemented, at least the path on which they’re both operating comes from an educated path of information and scenario planning, vs a path that's going to the left of where the world is. Singapore’s intellectual rigor is not something that’s solely available to them as a country due to their system, so why aren’t we looking at more opportunities like this?

Summary:

Looking at everything across the board, Singapore is performing well above its weight, with a GDP twice the size of New Zealand, yet a land mass 0.15% the size of New Zealand. It’s high income and ease of doing business make it a darling on the global stage, and being our 8th largest trade partner, there’s no doubt New Zealand needs to be creating a stronger dialogue with the country in terms of our initiatives around growth of technology overall, and how we can build competitive win-win partnerships across areas such as food, climate, agriculture and SaaS technologies. From what we heard and seen during this trip, a lot of these discussions and initiatives seem to be on the way despite the perhaps doomy mood I have had throughout this blog). However the question is are we doing enough? Why aren’t we establishing locked-in agreements with respect to climate technologies (like our neighbors Australia and Laos)? These are the questions that are concerning from a future economic perspective for NZ’s future, as if we don’t do that, someone else surely will. Our natural resources in future won’t be enough, and not having a structured forecasting department within government on megatrends shaping the world overall (at least from what I can and have seen) gives concern to us being lost on where we truly stand now, and with that, where will we stand in 5, maybe 10 years?

The next part of my title was a simple question - do we want to be more like Singapore? The question that played on my mind after this week is as follows: what does success look like? In New Zealand, we aspire (like most developed countries) for higher incomes, and therefore a higher quality of life. But what really is a higher quality of life? People in Singapore have a high income on average, and a great economy, but is that really replicable, and if it is, do we want to? New Zealand ranked 7th in USA Today's Best Countries to live in list, whilst Singapore sat in 14th. New Zealand shops close at 5pm in a majority of the towns outside main cities (growing up in Morrinsville, I can speak to this first hand), vs in Singapore you can see people going home from work on the MRT at 10pm at night. Well off families often have helpers looking after their children, where New Zealanders can go home 6-7pm and play social sports or cook for their families themselves. I think it’s very easy to look at the grass being greener on the other side, but we never see the long hours, the vicious anxiety that can come from a lack of employee-friendly labor laws. In principle, a lot of the sessions/briefings we had, the group of us were amazed at what the Lion City had to offer, but equally, each person we spoke to was incredibly jealous of our lifestyle in New Zealand.

While we have slipped in rankings in traditional education competency metrics, in a new age of digital automation and artificial intelligence, are these as important as they once were? Does our no.8 wire mentality reflect New Zealand’s ability to thrive when it comes to creativity and problem solving in the new age? Yes, but with its own limitations. No 8 wire is amazing as a generalist tactic, and is great for getting our businesses and entrepreneurs from zero to one. What we need though, is this and more. We need people who take businesses from 2-10, and then 100. And there’s more of them, but unless we adopt the intellectual fierceness and competitiveness that Singapore has adopted as the world has been following in their footsteps, then the zero to one mentality may not be enough.

We are still a country of creators, dreamers, and innovators. And I have no doubt Government and our legacy institutions are working on forward planning between them, but if we aren’t building much stronger public-private partnerships, then my concern is that might not be enough.

The world is moving faster whether we like it or not. We need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable and fast, as it’s not changing.