Look in the basket to see which economy has actually done better

I HAVEN'T DONE any real Singapore bashing recently and it's about time again. What with the persistent we-must-do-it-because-Singapore-has-done-it talk and the latest bit of Singapore crowing about economic growth, the itch just cannot be denied.

Here is one example of how we have not followed the Singapore way of doing things and are much the better off for it.

Singapore's fourth-quarter gross domestic product figures are just out and they show that manufacturing continues to account for a high proportion of overall economic effort, 26.8 per cent of GDP last year and rising.

Poor old Hong Kong is nowhere near, as the first chart shows. We used to be up there 20 years ago but manufacturing now accounts for only about 3 per cent of GDP and this figure continues to decline. How sad.

What we have done instead is make a transition to a services economy - banking, trade services, tourism and the like. Over the past 10 years the contribution to our economy from the net exports of these service industries has more than doubled to 16 per cent of GDP.

Meanwhile, the contribution from trade in services to Singapore's economy has plummeted, as the second chart shows. The figure for Singapore was higher than Hong Kong's 10 years ago. It is now in deficit to the tune of 2.5 per cent of GDP.