Singapore

Singapore’s commitment to knowledge-based economy (KBE) development in the past decade has enabled it to make a rapid and successful transition to knowledge-based city. This chapter focuses on how Singapore government has forged an environment that is conducive to innovations, new discoveries and the creation of new knowledge. In the process, Singapore has emerged as one of the top knowledge-based cities in the world through various frameworks used globally. In this period, Singapore strengthened its engagement with the global knowledge economy developing a creative industries development strategy which endorsed the importance of creative industries, aiming to position Singapore as a ‘new Asian creative hub’ (ERC Report, 2002, p.8). The Singapore experience represents one of few examples of how knowledge can become the driving force of economic growth and transformation. It provides valuable insight into how public policies have successfully negotiated the current global network economy to suit economic changes. Although Singapore’s developmental model has created benefits in many ways, it had also negatively constrained its development particularly in the area of knowledge creation and application to entrepreneurship and creativity.