THE MODEL for Singapore鈥檚 economic future is located not, as you might expect, in one of the Lion City鈥檚 gleaming new skyscrapers, but in an exotic enclave off Arab Street in a small office that overlooks the mosque where the Sultans of Jahor used to worship, and the dilapidated palace where they lived.
It was here in late 1994 that three young entrepreneurs, Wong Toon King, Hoo Shao Pin and Jek Kian Jin, set up a company, SilkRoute Ventures, to perform what Singaporean technocrats like to call 鈥渒nowledge arbitrage鈥�. That is, they add value to information about Asia by gathering all the data on, for example, conferences, and then creating an electronic document. This is distributed via the World Wide Web, a system of publishing and retrieving information on the Internet.
Singapore鈥檚 government believes that such soft services which rely on the production and distribution of information will be to the 21st century what trade in hard goods such as rubber and machine tools has been until now. Already one of the world鈥檚 biggest hubs for transport and commerce, the city state has staked its future on becoming a global nerve centre for media and communications too.
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The foundations for this electronic information and media hub were laid in August 1991 when Singapore鈥檚 National Computer Board published a report entitled IT2OOO: Vision of an Intelligent Island. This ambitious plan, which predates similar initiatives in the US and elsewhere, calls for the construction in Singapore of a National Information Infrastructure, an infrastructure that encompasses both the physical fibreoptic communications network and the information services that need this rapid form of digital communications.
Less than four years later, the construction of Asia鈥檚 first information superhighway is well under way. But while the government is promoting the idea of the 鈥渋ntelligent island鈥�, even to the extent that it has created a fictional family of the future to illustrate how its infrastructure plans may affect the average Singaporean, cracks in the plan have already begun to appear.
For example, SilkRoute Ventures鈥檚 鈥渨eb server鈥� 鈥� the computer that stores the value-added information and provides links to other computers on the Internet 鈥� is based in the US. The hardware has been set up outside Singapore because the island鈥檚 leaders have yet to make up their minds whether they want to allow commercial entities like SilkRoute Ventures, which is, ironically, a National Computer Board spin-off, to set up independent information distribution systems. The government does not wish to risk exposing Singaporeans to pornography and other cultural and political influences that it deems to be highly undesirable.
At present, only two organisations are authorised to provide access to the Internet in Singapore. One is government-funded, the other operated by Singapore Telecom, the country鈥檚 communications monopoly. Bill Claxton, an American entrepreneur who runs iMedia, a Singapore-based multimedia firm that is petitioning for permission to set up a web server to provide access over the Internet to his company鈥檚 interactive publications, pinpoints the key problem. 鈥淪ingapore has one foot in a world that wants to be an information hub, and the other in a world that wants to control information.鈥� The trouble, Claxton says, is that 鈥渢he worlds are moving apart鈥�. And as they diverge, Singapore risks forfeiting the pole position it won with IT2000.
The question is whether the Singaporean government will lag behind, or whether it will put ideology on the back burner to become the information hub of Asia. Past experience suggests the government will choose the latter.
On a small island like Singapore, things can happen fast. In 1981, the Singaporean government set up the National Computer Board. It employed 25 staff. Today, the island musters a cadre of nearly 20 000 professionals trained in computer science and the management of electronic information. In Asia, Singapore ranks second only to Japan in terms of the number of computers it manufactures. In addition, the island makes half of the world鈥檚 hard disc drives for personal computers, and almost all its sound cards 鈥� plug-in accessories that let personal computers play back music, sound effects and speech.
Singaporeans are also enthusiastic computer users. Some 30 per cent of households on the island own a PC, a rate comparable with that in the US, and 90 per cent of all businesses that employ more than 10 people use computers in some way. Most importantly for the future, recent surveys by the Lausanne Institute of Management Development and the World Economic Forum that looked at computer training and children鈥檚 familiarity with computers, ranked Singapore at or near the top.
The government has been the driving force behind this rapid development. Its economic development policy has attracted major manufacturers of computers and telecommunications equipment from the US, Europe and Japan. Today, according to OECD figures, over 7000 multinationals operate out of Singapore, employing 60 per cent of its workforce and producing 80 per cent of its exports.
Singapore set out to attract companies such as Apple Computer, Compaq and Hewlett-Packard with tax holidays, which exempted them from local taxes for a fixed period, cheap land and low-cost labour. But equally important were the services. 鈥淭he infrastructure here is outstanding,鈥� says David Smith, president of Tech Semiconductor, a new venture between Texas Instruments, Hewlett-Packard, Canon and Singapore鈥檚 Economic Development Board to manufacture memory chips.
Chip makers, for example, must have a stable power supply and plenty of pure water. Singapore does not have unlimited resources of either, but through careful management the island manages to provide the infrastructure the chip manufacturers demand by importing both water and power from neighbouring Malaysia. In contrast, Malaysia itself has so far failed to offer this level of service.
The transport infrastructure in Singapore is first-class, too. The island is home to the world鈥檚 largest container port, and the port authority makes aggressive use of information technology to stay ahead of competitors. Singapore鈥檚 Changi International Airport offers some of the most modern facilities in the world, so it is possible for a company like Tech Semiconductor to move its products from the fabrication plant to the airport and onto a plane in less than five hours.
In addition to utilities and transport, Singapore has one of the most advanced telecommunications networks. Singapore Telecom, which was privatised in 1993, claims to have been the first in the world 鈥� back in 1977 鈥� to use optical fibres in a commercial telecommunications network. By September 1994, all communications in Singapore were carried as digital bits and bytes rather than as analogue varying electrical voltages. The next goal for Singapore Telecom is to install broadband flbre-optic cables to link Singapore鈥檚 main commercial areas and most of the island鈥檚 725 000 residential addresses. The aim of the $100 million per annum project is to provide a network with the capacity to carry high-quality graphics and video.
Singapore鈥檚 small size 鈥� the island is just 43 kilometres long 鈥� plus the fact that over 80 per cent of its homes are high-rise blocks of flats, make this a relatively easy target to accomplish. 鈥淚t鈥檚 economicaIly justifiable to use fibre for 20-storey high rises,鈥� says Lian Bee Leng, a manager in Singapore Telecom鈥檚 network master planning division.
The fibre will a broadband (150 megabits per second) digital network capable of delivering form video on demand, home shopping and other multimedia services. A trial video-on-demand system that will provide 300 homes with direct access to thousands of feature films over their new phone lines is due to begin operation later this year.
Companies can also take advantage of the government鈥檚 investment in telecommunications. SilkRoute Ventures, for example, was founded on the premise that electronic communications were going to play an important part in the commercial future of Asia. The company鈥檚 most successful product is an online information service that allows exhibitors to book space at upcoming conferences. Singapore is one of Asia鈥檚 main convention centres, attracting major exhibitions such as Asia Travel Mart and Intermedia Asia. Each of these exhibitions pulls in thousands of exhibitors from around the world who need to book fixtures, employ local staff and provide accommodation for their employees and customers.
SilkRoute Ventures offers such exhibitors a one-stop shop. By accessing the company鈥檚 World Wide Web page, exhibitors can gather details about the conference they want to attend. They can then book space, make requests for staff, and even organise a sightseeing trip to Bali for preferred customers 鈥� all from the comfort of their local computer connected to the Internet.
In a sense, this use of the Internet and the building of the high-speed fibre optic network can be seen as the logical next step for the island state, an extrapolation of previous policies that encourage the adoption of technologies such as computers, to further its economic development. This is borne out by the first two goals identified in the IT2000 report 鈥� 鈥淒eveloping a Global Hub鈥� for the coordination of business operations and 鈥淏oosting the Economic Engine鈥�.
But the remaining three goals diverge from Singapore鈥檚 previous endeavours, and at the same time appear to conflict with the Singaporean government鈥檚 paternalistic approach to running the country. These goals are the use of the infrastructure for 鈥淓nhancing the Potential of Individuals鈥�, 鈥淟inking Communities Globally and Locally鈥�, and 鈥淚mproving the Quality of Life鈥�.
Lee Kwok Cheong, the National Computer Board executive charged with implementing the IT2000 plan, says the NCB鈥檚 role is to act as a catalyst in implementing these goals. The idea is to encourage private firms to take the plunge by demonstrating the potential of the fibre optic network through a number of projects designed for the public sector and education. These are called 鈥渁nchor applications鈥�.
One project is the Student鈥檚 and Teacher鈥檚 Workbench. This project encourages secondary school children to make use of information available through the Internet, and their teachers to work together on multimedia teaching aids based on CD-ROM to replace information presented on paper, slides and video.
Back in 1991, the year that Singapore launched its IT2000 plan, the island鈥檚 ministry of education began a pilot project to develop multimedia software for kindergarten children aged between four and six years. By January 1995, 83 of Singapore鈥檚 300 kindergartens were using the software to teach 20 000 children basic skills such as reading and writing. Children spend three to four hours out of a total of 15 to 20 hours schooling a week pointing and clicking their way through colourful textbook-related materials, explains Tan Meng Kwang, vice president of Ednovation, the company which developed the software.
鈥淚nitially we worried that the software would not keep the children interested,鈥� Tan recalls. In fact, he says, what often happens is that at the end of their half-hour session the children refuse to leave. Feedback from teachers indicates that children look forward to their computer-aided learning sessions. The children also appear to pick up things more quickly using computers than with conventional, rote learning methods.
Meanwhile at the other end of the country鈥檚 education system, two elite, independent secondary schools 鈥� Raffles Girls School and the Anglo-Chinese Boys School 鈥� are working with young staff at the National Computer Board to put together their own 鈥減ages鈥� on the World Wide Web.
Government policy is to encourage students to explore the Internet. Singapore is offering a 50 per cent discount for pre-university subscribers to SingNet, the company鈥檚 arm that provides access to the network. The key point about Internet usage in schools, says Thomas Ho, a senior fellow at the National University of Singapore鈥檚 Department of Information Systems and Computer Science, is that The Ministry of Education is on board, and that means it鈥檚 going to be pervasive, because Singapore is really government-centred, top-down.鈥�
Ho wonders, however, how this top-down approach will mesh with the underlying ethos of the Internet, which is based very much on a bottom-up, grassroots development. 鈥淪ingapore鈥檚 kids are not quite as narrow as Japan鈥檚, but they are very exam-oriented, the greatest test-takers in the world. They do everything by the book, and that鈥檚 not the Internet at all.鈥�
One key difference is the attitude to free access to information. This is one of the fundamental principles of the Internet, but a big issue to the Singaporean government, which enforces indefinite detention without trial under its Official Secrets Act. So Singapore鈥檚 domestic media has to watch what it prints.
In 1992, for example, the offices of Business Times, a local newspaper, were raided after it had jumped the gun in publishing government GDP growth estimates. Foreign newspapers and media that annoy the government have their circulations drastically curtailed or are simply banned. In November, an American academic employed at the National University of Singapore fled the country after criminal charges were filed against him in response to a critical newspaper commentary he wrote, which did not even mention Singapore by name.
When Catherine Lim, a popular local writer, criticised the government recently, she met a curt response. Singapore鈥檚 prime minister, Goh Chok Tong, lashed out, saying that he had 鈥渢o set the out-of-bounds markers clearly, so that everyone knows the limits of openness and consultation鈥�. With this stance being taken by the government, the decision by the Internet Society, the computer network鈥檚 standards body, to cancel plans to hold its annual conference in Singapore this June, came as no great surprise. According to Singapore newspaper reports, one factor in the society鈥檚 decision was local opposition to the prospect of a keynote address on how technology opened up societies and enhanced personal freedom.
Not long after this announcement, it emerged that earlier in the year the system administrator at TechNet, a government-funded network that provides Internet access to academics and researchers, had conducted an unauthorised search through 80 000 files for pornographic pictures 鈥� he found five examples. Lee says: 鈥淲e have to build in the necessary safeguards to protect Asian values. We don鈥檛 want our children exposed to pornography.鈥� At the same time he realises that 鈥渋f we want to be (an information hub), we can鈥檛 build a wall around Singapore鈥�. To this end he says that the country is already making some steps to open up to the outside world. He points out that the government recently privatised Television Corporation of Singapore, and that 30 channels of cable TV are on their way.
But even in this instance a question mark hangs over what this means for the people of Singapore. Last year, in line with its policy of becoming a regional media centre to rival Hong Kong, which is the base for Rupert Murdoch鈥檚 Star TV company, the Singaporean government opened the way for private operators to supply satellite uplinks. At least four firms, including Walt Disney and sports specialist ESPN, have plans to begin satellite broadcasts from Singapore to television audiences around Asia. Everywhere, that is, except Singapore, where individuals are still not allowed to own a satellite dish.
This exemplifies the Singaporean government鈥檚 paternalistic approach. An approach that has even resulted in the government setting up a Social Development Unit that, among other things encourages couples of equivalent intellectual ability to marry. Such a paternalistic approach, critics say, stifles innovation to the extent that young Singaporeans lack the requisite risk-taking attitude, opting instead for the security of white-collar jobs with multinational corporations.
There are of course exceptions. One of these is Sim Wong Hoo, who started Creative Technologies in 1981. Today Creative Technologies dominates the billion dollar market for sound cards, which often come as a standard item when you buy a new computer from a mail order company. Sim now intends to diversify into other multimedia products.
The government hopes that Sim, along with Wong, Hoo and Jeh, the researchers who left NCB to form SilkRoute Ventures, will act as role models for other young and enthusiastic Singaporean entrepreneurs. But critics like iMedia鈥檚 Claxton point out: 鈥淭he regulatory structure here is not conducive to information-oriented business.鈥� He says that there are few signs that the authorities are moving to modify that structure. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e in stun mode. They don鈥檛 know how to react.鈥�
At the same time, Claxton, along with many others in Singapore, remains optimistic about the country鈥檚 long term future as an intelligent island. One of the words most commonly used to describe the Singapore government 鈥� not least by government bureaucrats themselves 鈥� is 鈥減ragmatic鈥�. Clearly, there are aspects of IT2000 that Singapore鈥檚 rulers have yet to think through. Ultimately, however, it seems unlikely that in attempting to implement their vision of the future such pragmatic people would cut off their nose to spite their face (see Map).
