What Singapore May Offer to Russia? The Present State and the Prospects of Relations

Summary

WHAT ROLE S CAN SIN GAPORE PLAY FOR RUSSIA?

One key role is Singapore's good governance policies, which The Economist magazine's “Special report: The future of the state” in its 17 March 2011 issue explained:

Singapore's competitive advantage has been good, cheap government. It has worked hard to keep its bureaucracy small; even education consumes only 3.3 per cent of GDP. But the real savings come from keeping down social transfers and especially from not indulging the middle class. Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew thinks that the west's mistake has been to set up “all you can eat welfare states” — because everything at the buffet is free, it is consumed voraciously.

The following points sum up the lessons from Singapore, according to The Economist article:

1. • Singapore is important to any study of governance now, in Asia and the West, partly because it does some things very well — such as in education — and because there is an emerging theory about a superior Asian model of government, which is simplified in four parts;

2. • First, Singapore is good at governmence; it provides better schools, hospitals and safer streets with a government that consumes only 19 per cent of GDP (even though this figure does not include the CPF social security fund or the holdings of the two sovereign wealth funds). About 70,000 officials from 170 countries have learnt about Singapore's approach to public administration. For more details of the Singapore Civil Service, please read the UNDP-MFA-CSC book, Virtuous Cycles: The Singapore Public Service and National Development, by Dr N.C. Saxena, launched on 24 March 2011.

3. • Second, the secret of its success lies in an Asian mixture of authoritarian values and state-directed capitalism — largely a myth. Asian values are less important to Singapore's success than a competent civil service and a competitive, small state. Singapore argues that it has found a good balance between accountability and efficiency; it is able to take a very long view on policies because there is stability in achieving power through regular elections, unlike the U.S. administrations which have to think of the next election very soon.