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by:
Jack M. Nilles
JALA International, Inc.
Los Angeles and Bonn, November 1999
Contact:
Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH, Oxfordstr. 2, D-53111 Bonn
Tel.: (+49 02 2) 9 85 30-0, Fax: (+49 02 28) 9 85 30-12, Email: info@empirica.com, http://www.empirica.com, http://www.ecatt.com, Contact: Werner B. Korte
10 Singapore
10.1 The economy
Singapore is probably the most developed of the so-called developing countries. In fact it may be more developed than some of the so-called developed countries. As can be seen from Figure 33, the largest component (28%) of Singapore's workforce is in the information sector. Information technology production constitutes a major portion of Singapore's export income and the country has long had the ambition of being the telecommunications hub of Southeast Asia.
Singapore's Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology, a government agency, controls all the telecommunications services in Singapore via the Telecommunications Authority of Singapore (TAS). The TAS will be merged with the National Computer Board by the end of 1999, as evidence of the government's realization that digital communications are the core of future development. Singapore Telecom, Ltd. Is the primary provider of telephone services on the island. Singapore is already very "wired" with 85 telephone lines for every 100 inhabitants. Internet access and usage is high and several of Southeast Asia's larger ISPs have headquarters in the country. Singaporeans also enjoy a high standard of living, with a per capita GNP approximately 9 percent higher than that of the United States in 1999. The cost of a telephone call to the US is about 75 times the cost of a local call but is one of the lowest costs in Southeast Asia. Two-channel residential ISDN access costs are 5.6 euros per month plus 0.008 euros per channel-minute during peak hours. For 56 euros monthly-plus phone charges, web surfers can have unlimited Internet access.
Figure 33: Estimated composition of the workforce in Singapore
The estimated use of the Internet is shown in Figure 34. In 1999 half the population had Internet access.
Figure 34: Estimated Internet usage in Singapore
10.2 E-commerce
Given Singapore's important role in the manufacture of information technology products, combined with the high level of telecommunications penetration, it is not surprising if Singapore were to be an active player in the development of e-commerce. In August 1996 the Electronic Commerce Hotbed Programme was introduced to serve as a focus for identifying the key issues of implementation and growth.
The Electronic Transactions Act of 1998 came into force in July 1998 as part of the Singapore government's commitment to e-commerce. The act provides a legal foundation for electronic transactions and is intended to give predictability and certainty to electronic formation of contracts. The government also launched its Electronic Commerce Plan "to drive the pervasive use of electronic commerce in Singapore, and to strengthen Singapore's position as an international e-commerce hub." The plan has five main thrusts:
1. To develop an internationally linked e-commerce infrastructure
2. To jump-start Singapore as an e-commerce hub
3. To encourage businesses to use e-commerce strategically
4. To promote usage of e-commerce by the public and businesses, and
5. To harmonize cross-border e-commerce laws and policies
Goals are to have a critical base of e-commerce services and a reliable infrastructure by 2000, and to have a sizeable amount of e-commerce transactions, an e-commerce services sector, and the widespread adoption of e-commerce by the industry by 2003.
In 1998 the National Computer Board polled more than 1000 companies, from small to large, and covering eight industry sectors, on e-commerce. Almost three-quarters (73.3%) of the companies surveyed had corporate Internet access and one-third had their own web sites. Our estimate of the growth of e-commerce in Singapore is shown in Figure 35.
Figure 35: Electronic commerce in Singapore
10.3 New Ways to Work
Singapore has necessarily been involved in telework since the early 1990s, if for no other reason than the fact that the island consistently has had negative unemployment rates: more jobs available than skilled people to fill them. For example, Singapore newspapers, including the Straits Times, are partially edited and designed in satellite offices in Sydney and Manila. Much of the domestic computer industry uses designers and other information support personnel from several other countries. Of course, Singapore also hosts subsidiaries of multinational firms, with manufacturing in Singapore and design in the host country.
As Singapore continues to pursue its path of high tech development, this pattern of multinational team development via telework is likely to grow and intensify. Figure 36 shows the current estimate of telework development in Singapore, although no survey data are available to verify the numbers. Curiously, the purchasing power parity corrections show higher levels of telework than the nominal case because of Singapore's higher per capita GNP. In any case, only the relatively small population of Singapore prevents it from being a world leader in numbers of teleworkers.
A 1998 Symantec survey of teleworkers in the Asia-Pacific region indicated that 83% of Singaporean teleworkers were part-time telecommuters and were mostly in managerial and professional jobs. The 14% of mobile teleworkers were primarily in sales or customer service jobs, and the 3% who telework full-time from home included a high proportion of female, self employed, customer service/support professionals. Unlike the United States, where telework is about evenly split among the genders, most of the teleworkers were male, except those working full-time.
Figure 36: Estimated growth of telework in Singapore
