DIARIO RÍO NEGRO – The miracle of Singapore, keys of the country that most increased its wealth in the last 50 years.
I transcribe the most important part of Carlos Manzoni’s article published in, La Nacion. Six decades ago, Singapore was a poor country with high unemployment rates and an almost zero productive structure, but today it has one of the highest GDP per capita in the world, has the best “education system” and enjoys the most advanced “service of health.
Natalia Motyl, an economist at the Libertad y Progreso Foundation, points out that the reforms in the 70’s allowed Singapore to grow at 6.81% per year between 1976 and 2014, something that no other country in the world achieved.
Its policy focused on four axes: “Fight against corruption, economic freedom, health system reform and educational reform”; having focused on economic and political freedom on free market and respect for private property, where also “contracts had axis on: the drastic reduction in the tax burden, lower public spending, trade liberalization and implementation the notion of market competition for all enterprises. ”
Lee Kuan Yew was the prime minister from 1959 to 1990. Taxes in this country, which became independent from Malaysia in 1959, are very low. For example, income (equivalent to earnings in Argentina) is 0% for incomes less than $ 20,000 a year and only reaches 20% for those exceeding USD 320,000 per year. In addition, public spending “today, represents only 14% of GDP [in Argentina is 47%] and the weight of the public sector does not exceed 5%.”It has a trade surplus higher than that of Germany. Yes, we have less poor than in Germany.
By Silvano Giacolla Caruso
