Thursday 21 March 2013

Singapore is 'most innovative Asia Pacific city' in 2013

It beats Sydney, HK for 'dramatic, perpetual improvements': Survey
By Feng Zengkun, The Straits Times, 20 Mar 2013

SINGAPORE is the most innovative city in the Asia-Pacific region, a study has found, due to its rapid development from a trading port to an advanced technology leader and business leader.

The Republic beat Sydney, Auckland, Melbourne and Hong Kong - the rest of the top five - to the top spot because "it has made dramatic and perpetual improvements for the past 25 years".



The research was carried out by strategy consulting company Solidiance, which studied 16 cities in the region and scored them in six categories: their talent base, education and research systems, technology, culture and value systems, global integration and government regulations.

Singapore topped the global integration category, which looked at factors such as the cities' global competitiveness, their environmental sustainability and the level of English literacy in them.

Singapore's worst showing - sixth - was in its culture and value systems, which looked at indicators such as the degree of censorship and tolerance for failure as inferred from the suicide rate.

Mr Damien Duhamel, Solidiance's managing partner for the Asia-Pacific, said Singapore is "bold, fast and successful" today, but must continue to adapt and change to remain relevant.

The paper's authors said the rankings are likely to change in future as the top three cities were very closely matched in overall scores - just 0.03 points divided them. The maximum score is 1.

The research released earlier this month also did not include Western cities. Mr Duhamel said: "My view is that Asia-Pacific cities would overall still be lagging behind some well-known Western cities."

This is because urbanisation is still ongoing in the Asia-Pacific, he added. Singapore-based Solidiance also has offices in China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and other parts of Asia, and its clients include Microsoft and DuPont.


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