Boisterous and strong economies now imperiled

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By Simon Roughneen

SINGAPORE — Two of the world's most open and successful economies face tough times as the global downturn marks the end of one era and opens a new period of peril and possibility for both.

Singapore and Ireland have staked their fortunes on being small, export-oriented, investor-friendly dynamos. Singapore was one of the original Asian Tiger economies, and the label passed to the Atlantic nation in the 1990s, as 15 years of 5 percent average growth earned Ireland its "Celtic Tiger" reputation.

But as Kishore Mahbubani, a former Singapore diplomat and author of "The New Asian Hemisphere - The Irresistible Shift of Power to the East," told The Washington Times, "being globalized has its downside - when the world economy stutters, the more open economies feel the pain first."

Both Singapore and Ireland are officially in recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

Last week, U.S. computer giant Dell Inc. culled 2,000 jobs at its plant in Limerick, while Singapore's Trade Ministry stated Jan. 2 that it expected the economy to contract 2 percent in 2009, the worst predicted performance of any Asian economy for the coming year.

Ireland and Singapore in recent years have been at the top of rankings by the Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom and the Foreign Policy/AT Kearney listing of the world's mostglobalized economies.

The downturn has raised questions about the benefits of globalization, but Robert E. Kennedy, executive director of the William Davidson Institute and a professor at Michigan´s Ross School of Business, told The Washington Times that "the success over the past 20 years of Singapore and Ireland is a sign that globalization is working. Traditionally, having a large home market was extremely important for development. Ireland and Singapore have outperformed the global economy by a large margin over the past 10 to 20 years."

So far, the downturn has hit Ireland harder than its city-state counterpart in Southeast Asia. Unemployment is projected to top 10 percent by the end of 2009, and government borrowing will far exceed the 3 percent of GDP limit prescribed by the European Union, as revenues slump.

Michael Hennigan, founder of the Irish financial Web site Finfacts.com, said, "Huge inward investment from the U.S. triggered the Celtic Tiger, but it was allowed to develop into an out-of-control property boom, rather than focusing on developing a domestic exporting sector. Between 2000 and 2007, employment in Ireland expanded by 40 percent - in construction, public services, retail and distribution - while employment in the international tradable goods and services sector fell."

Ireland's fiscal wriggle room is limited, as interest rates are set by the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, whose slow rate-change reaction to the global downturn sparked criticism across the continent during 2008.