Breakfast, billionaires and big buildings: how do Hong Kong and Singapore really compare with each other?
As the Lion City moves ahead of Hong Kong in liveability rankings, we look at how the two places stack up against each other in eight random categories
Improvements in education have seen Singapore surpass Hong Kong in terms of “liveability” for the first time, according to the latest Economist Intelligence Unit survey. The Lion City jumped 11 places in the rankings from 46th to 35th, while Hong Kong fell two spots to 45th.
The two cities have often been compared and contrasted by outsiders and locals alike. They are part of a set of territories known as the “Four Asian Tigers”, so called for the miracle transformation of their economies during a period of rapid industrial and technological growth between the 1950s and 1990s.
Together with Taiwan and South Korea, these places experienced unparalleled human and economic development after the second world war.
Singapore beats Hong Kong in liveability rankings for first time
After Singapore gained independence in 1965, Lee Kuan Yew, the country’s first prime minister often referred to as its founding father, visited Hong Kong annually in search of development inspiration.
“The Singaporean cannot match the Hongkonger in drive and motivation,” Lee wrote in his memoirs. “In Hong Kong, when people fail, they blame themselves or their bad luck, pick themselves up and try again, hoping their luck will change.”
According to Lee, Singaporeans preferred job security and to be free of worry in the nation’s early days.
In more recent times, Hong Kong and Singapore have been further diverging. Singapore’s gross domestic product per capita has been creeping ahead, with the Southeast Asian state not wrapped in the same political struggles as Hong Kong under China.