Singapore's 'sorpasso' to cause soul-searching in HK

Italians used to brag about 'Il Sorpasso' - the point in 1987 that Italy overtook Britain to become the world's fifth largest economy.

Well, this year Singapore looks set to celebrate a sorpasso all of its own. According to forecasts from the International Monetary Fund, 2012 will be the year in which Singapore's economy overtakes Hong Kong's.

As the first chart shows, Singapore's nominal gross domestic product is expected to hit US$254 billion this year - a full US$10 billion greater than Hong Kong's output.

For Hong Kong the news is likely to come as an unpleasant shock. For decades, locals have been used to thinking that in economic terms they were bigger, brasher and altogether more virile than their near-neighbour in Southeast Asia.

It seemed the natural order of things. After all, while the two economies are superficially similar - both are small, predominantly Chinese cities with advanced open economies that depend heavily on international trade - Hong Kong is almost twice the size in terms of land area. And until the mid-1990s Hong Kong had a population nearly twice as great as Singapore.

But the old certainties have shifted in recent years, and not just because Singapore has grown physically, adding 30 square kilometres to its land area through massive reclamation projects.