Singapore's foreign direct investments abroad China, India, Indonesia, Myanmar & Vietnam

Abstract

Recently, the Singapore government has, on several occastons, encouraged

Singaporeans to sprout the "second wing" of our economy, with a view of complementing

the domestic economy. Tiris, coupled with the foreign governments' introduction of various

reforms and new industrial policies, has provided excellent opportunities for entrepreneurs

to invest overseas. In particular, the Singapore government has encouraged Singaporeans

to invest in emerging economies in the region such as China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and

Myanmar.

11ris project is aimed at studying the trend in Singapore's foreign direct investments

abroad, with special attention to the above-mentioned countries. It was conducted mainly

through two methods as outlined below:

• An extensive literature revtew of newspaper articles , publications by international

accounting finns and statutory boards.

• A study of the location-specific theory to identify pull and push factors affecting

investment decisions.

We begin our study by providing an overview of the trend in Singapore's foreign

direct investments (FDI) abroad over the past 15 years. As the FDI abroad increased

tremendously in the late eighties, we analyse this phenomena using pull and push factors

via an investment theory, namely the location-specific theory.