Singapore Policies – a Difficult Balancing Act
Abstract
The government has always been implementing their policies carefully to manage different economic issues in Singapore. The issues we are looking at are inflation, labour policies, currency and competitiveness. One policy affects another and it is challenging to balance all the various issues using policies which, may conflict the others, one way or another. Using the AD/AS diagram, we look at how demand and supply affects inflation. We would also look at the foreign labour policy and exchange rate policy and their relevance with our competitiveness with the market.
Content Page
1. Summary of article – Pg 1-2
2. Discussion of Inflation (Demand-Pull/ Cost-Push) – Pg 2-4
3. Inflation – Singapore’s case – Pg 4-5
4. Singapore’s Foreign Labour Policy – Pg 5
5. Firms’ Competiveness – Pg 5-6
6. Singapore’s Exchange Rate Policy – Pg 6 - 7
7. Limitations – Pg 7
8. Conclusion – Pg 7
9. References – Pg 8-9
Summary of Article:
The newspaper article mentions the conflicting interests faced when implementing economic policies. During the 18th Singapore Economic Roundtable, the majority agreed that policy-making in the future would be a difficult task but the arguments revolved around Singapore’ competitiveness being affected due to the increased cost of operations of businesses and a higher Singapore currency. They believe that the policies to encourage tighter labour market and curbing inflation is on opposing terms within a short duration of time. The results from the tightening of labour market are also not optimistic as our employment growth is considerably high compared to other countries who have small economy like us. As our employment growth is targeted at 2%, we still have much room to improve on. Singapore labour policy would need to be adjusted to support the economy. Despite so, our foreign labour policy is not well-received in terms of social aspects and
The government has always been implementing their policies carefully to manage different economic issues in Singapore. The issues we are looking at are inflation, labour policies, currency and competitiveness. One policy affects another and it is challenging to balance all the various issues using policies which, may conflict the others, one way or another. Using the AD/AS diagram, we look at how demand and supply affects inflation. We would also look at the foreign labour policy and exchange rate policy and their relevance with our competitiveness with the market.
Content Page
1. Summary of article – Pg 1-2
2. Discussion of Inflation (Demand-Pull/ Cost-Push) – Pg 2-4
3. Inflation – Singapore’s case – Pg 4-5
4. Singapore’s Foreign Labour Policy – Pg 5
5. Firms’ Competiveness – Pg 5-6
6. Singapore’s Exchange Rate Policy – Pg 6 - 7
7. Limitations – Pg 7
8. Conclusion – Pg 7
9. References – Pg 8-9
Summary of Article:
The newspaper article mentions the conflicting interests faced when implementing economic policies. During the 18th Singapore Economic Roundtable, the majority agreed that policy-making in the future would be a difficult task but the arguments revolved around Singapore’ competitiveness being affected due to the increased cost of operations of businesses and a higher Singapore currency. They believe that the policies to encourage tighter labour market and curbing inflation is on opposing terms within a short duration of time. The results from the tightening of labour market are also not optimistic as our employment growth is considerably high compared to other countries who have small economy like us. As our employment growth is targeted at 2%, we still have much room to improve on. Singapore labour policy would need to be adjusted to support the economy. Despite so, our foreign labour policy is not well-received in terms of social aspects and
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