Junus Tan Asks Can India ever replicate the economic miracle of Singapore? Junus Tan suggests that the GDP of Singapore is not much higher than that of Delhi or Mumbai Mumbai has strong economy too, but unlike Singapore it cannot put any restrictions on people from outside the city from immigrating and living in shanties. Given that freedom you will see slums alongside the massive wealth below. In other major cities these slums will be cleared off by authoritarian governments and packed to some distant place. When you take the example of Singapore or Hong Kong, remember that a city with a large port and a financial centre will have a high GDP and if you call that city as a country you will see a highly inflated development index. While we don’t want to take away from the great work done by Singapore, remember that there are dozens of such cities around the world with comparable economic output. It is just that most of them are within large countries and thus you don’t notice their GDP figures separately. Unlike Mumbai or Delhi, Singapore is not burdened with developing a large hinterland or helping 100s of millions climb out of poverty. More than Singapore, India has to take individual lessons from large countries like China, US, Japan, Germany, Brazil, Indonesia — they all have done some or the other policies that could be adapted to our country.
Answer requested by Junus Tan!!