What does WEF competitive report means to Day2Day SG?

Arapahoe SG

Singapore "Rank" 3rd this year.....5.55 out of 7

Note: Pls ignore the last digit that was last year ranking.

Switzerland 1 5.60 2

United States 2 5.59 1

Singapore 3 5.55 5

Sweden 4 5.51 4

Denmark 5 5.46 3

Finland 6 5.43 6

Germany 7 5.37 7

Japan 8 5.37 9

Canada 9 5.33 10

Netherlands 10 5.32 8

Country/Economy Rank Score Rank*

Arapahoe SG

I was curious so I download the report from WEF web site to find out what was covered in the competitiveness report? After scanning thru the report you kinda of wonder what it means for Day 2 day singaporean ?

Category – Institutions

1.07 Wastefulness of Government spending

The question was How would you rate the composition of public spending in your Country?

1 – Extremely Wasteful --- 7 – highly efficient in providing goods and services.

Singapore Scored – 6.1 (higherest scored among 133 states)

Category – Macroeconomics Stability

3.05 Government Debt

The question was : Government Gross Debt as a percentage of GDP

Singapore – Rank 129 with 99.2

Stevenson101 SG

I'm assuming that the gross debt is obtained by borrowing from the CPF?

All this rank and numbers is fine and all, but i'm just more curious with where that debt is coming from.

Arapahoe SG

Well there are couple of points to make here.

1) exactly your question....where does the debt come from ? SG debt 100% more than annual GDP?

2) wasteful government spending rank the best but debt rise with no wastefulness?

Arapahoe SG

Category – Health and Primary Education

4.11 – Education Expenditure Rank 109

Category – Higher Education and Training

5.02 - Tertiary Education Rank 29

5.03 - Quality of Education system 1

5.06 -- Extend of Staff Training 2

Considering our only resource is human capital I thought these 2 categories would be the higherest.....Now look at the contra report from business organization....#4 and #8....the message given out from this report contradict our education system. Perharps the notion that our Primary Education was so weak. If workforce from lower end are not getting the attention and our younger generation are getting the short change.

The most problematic factors for doing business

Inflation ...........................................................................20.3

Restrictive labor regulations.......................................15.1

Access to financing......................................................12.6

Inadequately educated workforce.............................11.9

Tax regulations ................................................................9.4

Tax rates ...........................................................................7.9

Inadequate supply of infrastructure ............................6.2

Poor work ethic in national labor force ......................5.7

Foreign currency regulations........................................4.8

Inefficient government bureaucracy...........................3.4

Arapahoe SG

Personally i find it meaningless to compare by countries but if you look at the individual countries the numbers yield more questions about how the ranking are obtained and the relevancy of measuring government competitiveness.. to its residents......once again it only further highlight the conspiracy theory of world business and world government controling global economies that is in circulation out there...........

Atobe SG

Well there are couple of points to make here.

1) exactly your question....where does the debt come from ? SG debt 100% more than annual GDP?

2) wasteful government spending rank the best but debt rise with no wastefulness?

Could the losses incurred from the Reserves have been recorded as a Government Debt to the Reserves ?

There was that unaccounted loss of US$100 Billion from the combined investment failures of GIC and TH announced in 2009. This loss is significant when the National Reserves have been speculated to be at US$300 Billion PLUS.

The late President Ong would probably have dealt more firmly with the PAP, after receiving the partial sets of accounts that were reluctantly handed over to him.

He would probably have not allowed the excess surplusses to be transferred from the Finance Ministry to GIC and TH, and would have insisted the annual surplus to be returned to the Reserves for his safe keeping.

lionnoisy SG

Other gavaman borrows for expenditures. Singapore borrows billions

of money from CPF is just to give interest to CPF members.

If u wants SG gavaman dunt borrow from CPF,then

where do u get the interest?

If we have so much public net debts,where do the money in Temasek

and GIC come from?

2.some body quote

Category – Health and Primary Education

4.11 – Education Expenditure Rank 109

OMG!!How can u rank the effectiveness of a country education system

by looking at the % of education expenditure in gavaman overall expenditure?

This is non--sense.

If our education is bad,why did Califonia

of USA adopt maths books for pre schools and primary schools?

Arapahoe SG

need to determine which year did they realized the loss? cause the datas are from 2008...

Arapahoe SG

Other gavaman borrows for expenditures. Singapore borrows billions

of money from CPF is just to give interest to CPF members.

If u wants SG gavaman dunt borrow from CPF,then

where do u get the interest?

If we have so much public net debts,where do the money in Temasek

and GIC come from?

2.some body quote

Category – Health and Primary Education

4.11 – Education Expenditure Rank 109

OMG!!How can u rank the effectiveness of a country education system

by looking at the % of education expenditure in gavaman overall expenditure?

This is non--sense.

If our education is bad,why did Califonia

of USA adopt maths books for pre schools and primary schools?

Maybe you forgot to look at the response from Singapore businesses? #4 and #8.....

It said it all.

The result contradict the ranking again it put the question as what does it really means....to rank so high yet response are bad.

Arapahoe SG

Please do not confused between operating budget deficit vs National Debt.

Operating budget deficit are current spending exceeding tax revenue.

National debt are past deficit accumulating into debt.