Singapore in the global value chains

• Main Authors: CHANG, Pao-Li, NGUYEN, Tran Bao Phuong
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2021
• Subjects: Global value chains; downstreamness; Singapore; East Asia; Asian Studies; Growth and Development; International Economics
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/2610
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This chapter analyses the participation of Singapore in the global value chains (GVC): how much of its gross exports are GVC-related trade; how downstream it is; and which countries are its key upstream and downstream trade partners. The analysis is carried out both at the country aggregate level and at the sector level. New formulas are proposed in the gross export decomposition framework of Koopman, Wang and Wei (2014) and Borin and Mancini (2017), to characterise a country/industry’s downstreamness in the GVC and the importance of each trade partner in its backward/forward linkages. Singapore started off with a very high level of GVC trade in 1995, but its unique status has been diluted over the years. In the last two decades, East Asian countries (such as Taiwan and Korea) have become equally, if not more, active players in the GVCs. In contrast with Japan and the United States, Singapore is located at the lower end of the GVC (with a similar downstreamness index as China). Malaysia and the United States were Singapore’s top two upstream/downstream partners in 1995; however, by 2011, China had taken up substantially more weight and replaced the US’s status.