Asia vs Africa
11 September 2019
Will the future favour Singapore or SA? Whereas maps pinpoint Singapore’s pertinence to Asia’s ascent, trend-focused lenses illuminate SA’s untapped relevance. Our lack of a workable growth plan evidences aloofness toward shifts spanning demographics, technology and China. While Singapore’s prosperity is established, global trends favour SA’s positioning.
While they are declining or plunging elsewhere, in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) youth populations are soaring. This region is headed toward having nearly half the world’s population under age-five by mid century. Its growing share of the world’s extreme poverty already exceeds 50% versus its 1% share of discretionary income. Singapore did not grow rich by advancing trade among poor countries as that provokes tortuously slow progress. Rather, it soared through connecting low-income Asian workers with wealthy consumers in distant regions.
SSA’s pervasive poverty reflects modest global integration which further traces to a lack of snow covered mountain ranges. Thus this region always lacked the networks of all-season navigable rivers common elsewhere. Conversely, the digital interconnectivity now reconceiving SA’s potential exceeds how container shipping helped fast-track Singapore’s economic stardom.
No one understands today’s global economic shifts better than China’s leaders. Their workforce is now sharply contracting due to decades of a “one-child policy”. China’s manufacturing output can continue to grow through increasing investments in machines, including robots. The problem for China, and the world, is that declining youth populations soften both consumer demand and economic dynamism.