I didn’t even know we made clothes
26 November 2004

According to ANN, Singapore will lose its 7,000 textile jobs over the next few years as the scrapping of quotas takes effect.

… Singapore exports remain much more expensive than those from other countries. This is because labour costs here are high, and the number of workers with relevant skills is scarce.

Um. I think that means Singapore does not have a comparative advantage in the clothing manufacturing industry and we should get out. At least there are no signs of government protectionism; they’re too busy pouring money and public relations efforts into the semiconductor / sports / arts / biomedical science / etc., industry.

1 Comment

  1. we do! we do! I walked into the local (by which I mean ‘in a small US college town’) Gap the other day and what should I see on the label but ‘Made in Singapore’, to which my friend remarked, “I didn’t know you guys were a third world country”

    Comment by Grace — 1 December 2004 @ 12:30 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.