Singapore's Regionalization Blueprint: A Case of Strategic Management, State Enterprise Network and Selective Intervention

Abstract

Strategic management for economic development has been the hallmark of the Singapore 'success story'. State-led, market-driven intervention underscored the city-state's development strategies. This paper revisits this development blueprint in the context of Singapore's efforts at regionalization. The paper takes a closer look at Singapore's state enterprise strategy, and the 'portability' of the strategy - in the framework of Regionalization 2000 - beyond the city-state. It concludes that the calculated, schematised efforts, though remarkable, have been overly optimistic and have failed to engender equally compelling results, more often than not frustrated by the intricacies of socio-political realities in the host economies.

Keywords: Regionalization, Industrial Parks, State Enterprise Networks, Singapore

JEL Classification: R10