Tiger Year for Singapore

2022 will see major shifts in the global distribution of power and the emergence of China to become a superpower in waiting. 2022 will be a Sino-centric world as China steps up to become a leader of a new global economic order. Singapore needs to be integrally locked in tandem into China growth momentum. China and India are emerging as economic and political heavyweights. China holds over a trillion dollars in hard currency reserves. Their phenomenal growth is opening the way for a multipolar era in world politics.



1974, 1986, 1998 are Tiger years and they are periods in decline coinciding with market troughs. Tiger years see great rises and falls and Singapore needs to have its signature fortitude and resolution to ride out these abrupt and disruptive periods. 1974’s oil shock and the Dow crash were hellish. The outbreak of Insider trading in 1986 leading to the Black Monday of October 19, 1987 was period of great stress. The Asian Financial Crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of Asia beginning in July 1997 and through 1998, and raised fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion. 2010 see Singapore coming out of 2009 Financial Crisis of the century comparable to the Great Depression of 1929.



2022 will see Singapore latched on to more multilateral trade arrangements to stabilize its economy. With our small size, Singapore must maintains a high profile foreign economic policy and to develop and maintain activist economic diplomacy linkages at various levels of engagement in Europe, US, Asian and Pacific regions. Given Singapore’s geo-economics circumstances and our trading-state credentials, Singapore is very much dependent on the healthy development and stability of the international economic system.



2022 will see Singapore living in a world of contesting multilateralisms and will see Singapore asserting activism in this multilateralisms especially with China and India. With these broad-based alliances, hopefully it will provide some stability when the next trough forms in the Tiger year of 2022.