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Why Singapore’s Economy Outshines Barbados

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Most times when reference is made to Singapore, it is about the system of government and how it has been able to transform itself into a model economy. Here is one of many examples why Barbados will never be able to compare to Singapore. We do not have the will, the mindset, or the discipline required to close the widening gap.

In Barbados, the Ministry of Agriculture is routinely treated as a low status portfolio, like Sports – assigned to junior members of Parliament (MP) or to individuals who prefer not to be overly burdened. The current minister, Shantal Munro‑Knight, is a first‑time MP. This is not a critique of her; it is a critique of the prevailing political culture that treats agriculture – a sector central to food security, land use, climate resilience, and national development – as a tick the box item. Singapore would never assign such a critical ministry to a newcomer. In fact, Singapore does not have a dedicated Ministry of Agriculture. Instead, agricultural policies, food security, and environmental sustainability functions are assigned to the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment(MSE) and overseen operationally by its statutory board, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA).

This is the difference: Singapore efficiently drives to achieve national goals; Barbados distributes portfolios to satisfy political expediency.

Permaculture instructor Andrew Millison journeys to Singapore where he explores the movement to turn that city into an edible garden paradise.

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20 responses to “Why Singapore’s Economy Outshines Barbados”

  1. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    Weee persist with the enormous efforts to pretend the Titantic is not sinking.

    As ideas like Singapore, as first raised in these parts by Barrow 70 years ago and given all we’ve learnt about development since, could still have meaning for small developing states.

    While we entertain such dreams we have capitalism, neoliberalism, empire and 600 hundred years of Western domination coming to an end. These two ideas cannot coexist.

    How can it be possible to think in terms of development absent the limitations imposed by the failures of the past and the current circumstances?

    Only today the tariff war between Canadá and the USA, the negotiations around them, failed with Carney responding to those measures earlier imposed by Drumpf.

    And this is merely a single data point. But everywhere we look there are massive governance issues, issues of economy.

    We could talk about Japan which recently was forced to hold on to US treasuries and take a 22B loan just to pay for oil. Bessent, wants to avoid a massive sell off which conditions portend.

    Surely, no small island state without resources, not even Singapore, or any other, immediately after the high point of globalization, at a time when large countries and blocs are failing, can find space to do more than merely tryng to survive.

    Mere survival and development are two completely different things.

  2. BAJE Avatar
    BAJE

    DISCIPLINE AND ACCOUNTABILITY

  3. David Avatar
    David

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcRyEBTR1lq/

  4. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Singa poor ?

  5. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    LOL @ Pacha
    “Mere survival and development are two completely different things”
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    So true!

    But this whole affair HAS to be particularly distressing to the Pachamama… not so much the lotta despair, but much more so, the UNCANNY correlation that it all has with Biblical prognostications written eons ago.

    Poor Pacha must be at a complete loss as to how, despite ongoing disdain from Pacha’s pen, and the relentless abuse of a now whackerless Bushie, Our Pachie is forced to draw the identical conclusions, …make the same prognoses, and express the same hopelessness for brass bowls as has the irrepressible book, …and stinking Bushie.
    Murduh do!!!

    Pacha is apparently upset with this book because albino-centric demons were astute enuff to use it to their capitalistic advantage – against hard-ears brass bowls who lost their bearings… their purpose, their value, and their God.
    …and this is somehow the book’s fault..???!!!

    Imagine what it must have been like living at the time just before Noah’s flood…
    What appears to be notably missing in all the gloom is that the very abused book also outlines a path to TRUE development. A path that is described as narrow and winding, …but that leads to development that is WAYYYY beyond anything that Singapore has, or can ever experience.

    Perhaps when the correlation becomes even closer to causation (in the coming months) even Pacha will be disposed to explore that narrow and winding path…
    …hopefully before the gate is closed – like the doors on Noah’s ark were, by the time the waters REALLY started to rise…

    What a time!
    What a plan!
    What execution!

  6. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    Good video @Hants

    Perhaps someone could explain how this parade is representative of ‘senior games’ -which seek to promote healthy lifestyle, physical fitness, wholesome living, and positive interactions among our elderly.

    Every shiite is wuk-up, drink-up, dance-up, and wind-up.

    Indeed, if we were to envision a world immediately before Noah’s flood it could probably be characterized by such a ‘parade’.

    Bushie would have held an opening ceremony at the Gymnasium that paid special homage to every one of last year’s medal winners and special performers, featuring a short address from Mr. ‘Old’ Young – the perennial senior games advocate.
    The bushman would then add special challenge (and awards) to all new participants for 2026 to improve their health numbers by the close of the games, as well as to all sports organizations to expand their numbers of seniors.

    Politicians could attend if they wish…

    This would then be promoted constantly over the period of the games by TV, radio, and social media – just like they promoted the stupid BimPay nonsense…

    What a place nuh!!
    …where left is right, up is down, sexual perversions are ‘normal’ and hence brassbowlery is acceptable…

    Only bout here!!

  7. John A Avatar
    John A

    Trying to speak of Singapore and Barbados in the same sentence is pointless. You are trying to compare a disciplined society with a “brek fuh yuself” indisciplined one. Singapore is a clean society where its people don’t throw snack boxes out of car windows, or pelt pep bottles on the highway. Their government also does not pander to the vote but does what’s best for the country. If you compare their progress from say 1960 to ours from the same year, you will see how different approaches yielded different results. Just look at our NISSS and it’s damagement and compare it to theirs for an example of governance.

    We have allowed this country to run rampant for way too long to pull it back now. The ZRS, madness on our roads and lost of law and order in terms of enforcement, have lead us where we are now and all the grandstanding and posturing can not change it. I mean shite man we couldn’t even decide where to put a circus without making a embarrassment out of it.

  8. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    Bushie

    You presuppose that we’ve never been here before as natural human beings. Wrong!

    And while your singular book draws on stories or sometimes oral traditions from the long arc of human evolution to assert relevance, there are gross contradictions which can never be squared.

    Example, the fiction of a Noah and an Ark! For even to a fallen man, like you, this story could never have made sense in the natural world.

    Two of a kind on a boat one man and his family built, on a boat sailing for months or years before running aground. Of the millions of species and animals Pachamama has evolved this story could have never been anything but a boat load of shiiite.

    More generally, we have all kinds of calamitous stories within the evolutionary history of humans. Less than 60K years ago there were only a few dozen females of child-beating age on this planet, and we survived.

    Sixty-five million years ago, long before humans, there was the last apocalyptic event of six which destroyed over 90 percent of all living things, including the giant dinosaurs. But modern birds are evolved from dinosaurs.

    400 nuclear weapons are enough to trigger a new ice age. An event which will block out the Sun and cast the entire earth under two miles deep of ice. Maybe the Sun is the real God!

    Weee have over 20K nuclear weapons and many more than 400 are likely to be used, given the arithmetic.These are the orders of magnitude. Regrettably for you, nobody will intervene to save you or us ….. but us!

    But yes, this is the time for a national survivalist ethos. Not for dated and meaningless notions about development.

  9. David Avatar
    David

    @Bush Tea

    This is WE kulture.

  10. David Avatar
    David

    @John A

    But reference to Singapore helps to set the bar doesn’t it?

  11. John Avatar
    John

    Poor self serving leadership with no vision, plan, discipline and commitment.

  12. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ David

    That’s right it does show you how 2 countries between 1960 and now took different paths. One would say Singapore was fathered by a dictator, but unlike others he ensured all his people benefitted. What to me is most interesting is how people there who grew up with serious rules, learnt to respect them and as a result a standard was not only maintained but has flourished to this day. No one should ever compare Signapore to Barbados, they are like night and day apart. We sadly must accept that ALL governments are responsible for the delinquent state we are in today, where rules and laws are more of a “suggestion” it seems than actual enforced rules of law.

  13. David Avatar
    David

    @John A

    Much has been written by the scholars regarding the advantages and disadvantages of a benevolent dictatorship system versus our so called democracy. Probably more will long after we depart this world. There will always be trade offs.

  14. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ John A
    “…rules and laws are more of a “suggestion” it seems than actual enforced rules of law.”
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    It is not that our politicians do not like ‘law and order’. No doubt each and every one of them would like nothing better for Barbados to be much like Singapore.
    The challenge is how to do this without having such laws apply to themselves, their family, their party affiliates, lodge brethren, their financial backers, and even to favored yardfowls.

    It takes special brilliance and oratory gymnastics to manage this delicate balance.
    Any decent brass bowl can manage what Singapore did… That only takes true patriotism, honesty, transparency, and unrelenting accountability.

    Do you think that it is easy to preach to the youth about ‘putting down their guns’ – while you carry your own …and also have a permanent police security presence?

    How do you inspire a people to live within their means – while government is spending wildly on CARIFESTA, HOPE, STEAL and Four Seasons … and ‘the thing’ at Newton, …while bragging about borrowing more and more…?

    ..Or how about removing tint in our super hot climate – but exempting certain officials who apparently, may be affected by the UV rays…?

    So then we have to…
    – Pass inept laws with dubious loopholes included,
    – Ensure that the Judiciary is inept, thereby, no matter how fast the police catch criminals, they are recycled even faster.
    – invalidate our systems of transparency like the PAC, Annual Audited accounts, Audit General etc
    – Refuse to respond to potentially incriminating issues like NISSS, HOPE and other Radical issues
    – Bribe Calypsonians with gigs, sponsorship, tours and handouts – cause they can be dangerous.
    – Silence all questioning voices in the Press and use Announcer as an example of what can happen.

    Then..
    You can say that the required laws are in place…
    You can blame parents, police, courts, youth, schools, … even stinking Bushie,
    but you ARE able to proclaim yourself to be ‘honorable’, and some of those who concede to your bullying can even be ‘most honorable’… LOL

    This is a LOTTA HARD WORK!!!

    In Singapore, the same laws applies to all citizens, foreigners, Medes, and Persians.
    And the systems of transparency are such, that any intended brassbowlery requires both bravery and stupidity in large measures.
    Therefore their many hands seem somehow able to get EVERY shiite to work…
    Simple!

    What a choice we made!

  15. David Avatar
    David

    Wow Bush Tea, you are coming hot tonight. Nothing to add.

  16. John A Avatar
    John A

    @Bush Tea

    You have hit the nail on the head. It’s nice to talk but when it comes to achieving what one has talked about that requires work and discipline. Remember in Signapore these laws are taught from young. No littering, no chewing of gum etc. To litter brings shame on the person doing it and the fines are enforced rigoursly regarding of class, colour or position. You can see what happens when a politician is caught offside as well.

    We can really stop talking about copying Signapore as we will never get there. Not today or tomorrow or in our lifetime will that ever happen. No matter how much you polish brass it will never become gold.

  17. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    “We can really stop talking about copying Signapore as we will never get there. Not today or tomorrow or in our lifetime will that ever happen.”

    @ John A

    I agree with you wholeheartedly.

    I’ve read that everyone in Singapore has a role to play in keeping the country litter free.

    “Singapore is known for being a clean and attractive city. The National Environment Agency (NEA) plays a key role in ensuring Singapore lives up to its reputation, by ensuring its streets and pavements are litter-free.”
    “This is achieved in three key ways: the cleaning of public areas, PUBLIC EDUCATION, and ENFORCEMENT.”

    In Barbados we see people littering indiscriminately around the island. They leave home to throw their garbage in gullies or in other people’s garbage containers. They throw plastic cups and bottles through the windows of moving vehicles or while walking along the roadways.

    I’ve also seen people either very early morning or late at night, going through districts tearing open garbage bags and discarding the trash to search for ‘sweet drink bottles,’ while in Bridgetown vagrants engage in a similar activity looking for food and leaving the pavements ‘in a mess.’

    If anyone suggests something should be done about the unsightly accumulation of coconut shells along the highways, it is usually met with the response that, ‘yuh trying to stop de poor Black man from meking a dollar.’

    Appears as though the Chefette and KFC delivery drivers have created a ‘culture’ similar to that of the PSVs.
    When are the government and BPS going to address the issue of them speeding and driving recklessly……

    …… or is Haloutte one of ‘the UNTOUCHABLES’ in Barbados?

    Then again, over 40 years we can’t prevent the PSV operators from ‘dragging’ or speeding. Those delivery drivers are of ‘recent vintage.’

    Unfortunately, however, there are people who actually CONDONE and DEFEND those behaviours.

  18. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    swap.

    https://barbadostoday.bb/2026/08/24/finance-minister-unveils-1-2-bil-debt-swap-to-tackle-ncds-childhood-obesity/

  19. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ Artax

    Artax I will tell you honestly I have accepted this is what we are and a few voices crying in the wilderness will change nothing. We invent laws like if we don’t already have laws that are not enforced. I know you will say it is wrong to just give up on the indifference we see daily, but truth is there is nobody either willing or capable of addressing the delinquent behaviour we are seeing more of in this country daily it seems. On the plus I don’t have as long here as I spent already and for that I am grateful.

  20. David Avatar
    David

    New lessons from Singapore

    SHE’S THE ECONOMIC MODEL that small island developing states (SIDS) are supposed to follow. Every so often, one of us social and economic commentators will push for our nations to implement Singapore’s strategies. I’ve done it so often that I am now hesitant to use the country as a reference in my musings. This time, though, is different.

    Singapore’s fertility rate in 2025 was reported at 0.87 children per woman. For comparison, Barbados recorded 1.7 births per woman in 2025, according to the United Nations Population Fund. That’s it! What we have here is an economic point of no real return on its own.

    Plainly put, it’s the first time I am willing to admit that Singapore is a victim of its own success. This depends squarely, though, on how the island nation plans to integrate its population-growth strategy with productive technology. By that, I refer solely to artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial feneral intelligence (AGI). They are not “reproductive”, as you may be tempted to think.

    Typically, the replacement level of a population is 2.1 children per woman. This essentially represents the number of children needed to replace a couple upon their deaths (with a bit of a rounding error). Societies with that number are thought to grow their populations organically, ceteris paribus, or all other things being equal. That caveat, for your information, is Latin that economists use when trying to control the complexity introduced by too many assumptions in our arguments. This simplification means that, here, we don’t factor in the effects of emigration or immigration just yet.

    The fertility rate in Singapore is so low that, on its own, the country loses 50 per cent of its residents in one generation, or 25 years.

    Barbados, relatively speaking, is in a better position. We will lose 50 per cent of our population in four generations, or roughly 120 years. These calculations do not take into consideration the potential effects of high life expectancy and heavy dependence on immigration. Again, it is all ceteris paribus.

    According to Indranee Rajah, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, the fertility issue cannot be addressed through policy measures alone.

    She believes that addressing it requires a total reshaping of “how marriage and parenthood are viewed and supported, how workplaces can evolve to better align work and family, and how everyone can play their part”. It is my strong opinion that the idea of work, in and of itself, is possibly the greatest determinant of the fertility rate.

    Providing longer maternity and paternity leave has had mixed effects globally. It is a common view that those two measures have led to a “stabilisation” of the workforce. Critics, however, contend that such benefits mainly assist those who already planned to have children, doing little to encourage those who are laissez-faire about parenthood. My thinking has always leaned towards incentives designed to promote a successful replacement rate. These include shorter working days across all forms of employment; “healthy” minimum-wage increases and associated protections; national wage adjustments that are linked (or, in finance-speak, indexed) to inflation; and easier access to real estate credit. This both leads to and benefits from stronger economic performance.

    To my mind, this begins to create circumstances in which fertility improves as the country becomes an attractive destination for immigrants. Immigration is an easy short-term fix to the problem, and I also tend to support it. What is important is that we recognise, primarily, the pressures on physical and social infrastructure.

    Added to these is the likelihood of heightened foreign exchange leakage for Barbados. An uptick in immigrants will mean greater potential for remittance outflows.

    Larger foreign-exchange leakages

    Policies intended to improve the path to residency and even citizenship can lead to larger, unplanned foreign-exchange leakages. They may be noticeable in SIDS such as Barbados, but less so in Singapore. This distinction is important.

    Foreign workers will often maintain links and loyalties to places where they spent a substantial part of their lives. I respect this outlook, so I believe, once again for us, that a government has to plan for it.

    Our economic policy is driven by the need to protect the value of the Barbados dollar by fixing it to the United States dollar. Foreign exchange shortages, particularly if they deepen, make it challenging for the Central Bank of Barbados to defend the value of our currency. Protecting it has depended more on tax policy intended to curb consumption than on productivity or deliberate export diversification. Ironically, the latter will need to be our focus if the country continues to pursue the immigration strategy to which we seem committed. Greater productivity and exports will bring more foreign exchange to our resourcestricken nation. Immigrants will send some of that money to their families abroad. There is nothing wrong with this, and we should at least plan for it.

    Singapore is a very difficult country to move to. By all accounts, it has decided to pursue a new path similar to the one Barbados is on. We will see Singapore become very open to immigration.

    It is, however, a country known to be strategic and adept at measuring the performance of its economy. Economists there seem to look at a wider range of success factors than we do when it comes to driving major economic change. In that sense, I expect its new immigration policy to place a hard limit on the number of people seeking to live there. Beyond the country’s size, I think this approach will be heavily influenced by advances in AI and AGI.

    There will soon come a time when SIDS begin to recognise that they do not need the population sizes they think they do. This could present as much of a threat as an opportunity, depending on how well we prepare for it in the Englishspeaking Caribbean. Part of me doubts that we will, though, even if we eventually try. I say this because Anthropic, one of the AI behemoths, just introduced the Model Hardware Standard (MHS).

    MHS allows AI, for the first time, to speak to hardware such as robotic arms, simplifying the use of this technology across vocations.

    Effectively, this means that “blue-collar” workers are not as safe from advances in AI as we thought they were just three months ago.

    Somehow, I expect Singapore to exploit this, while we in the region fight against it entirely.

    My take is that, within a few years, the use of foreign workers to support construction booms in the region could dwindle. Then again, I doubt that this will happen, even though the potential disruption and its benefits will be clear from the likes of Singapore. I am willing to take bets on this.

    Jeremy Stephen is an economist/financial analyst with extensive experience in private equity and economic consulting in Barbados and the region. Email economistfeedback@gmail.com

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