Introduction
The former British colony of Singapore is an island republic occupying an area of 660 square kilometres at the southern tip of the Malayan peninsula. A tropical island just north of the Equator, it has a permanent population of 4.8 million with three main ethnic groups: Chinese (77%), Malay (14%), Indian (7.6%) and others (1.4%).
It has a sophisticated and well-developed state capitalist mixed economy in that the state controls and owns firms comprising at least 60 per cent of the country's GDP through various government entities, companies and sovereign wealth funds. Singapore being an island with no natural resources, its economy has traditionally been dependent on entrepot trade and manufacturing of high value-added products, such as computer disk drives and wafers. It is also the busiest port in the world.2