A tale of two cities rekindled: Hong Kong and Singapore's divergent paths to industrialism

Despite their geographical and historic similarities, the two East Asian city-states have followed very different paths in their post-war industrial development. Not only was the structure of industrial production in Singapore relatively more large-scale and balanced (with both heavy and light industries), but the principal agent of industrialization was foreign, not local capital. Hong Kong, on the other hand, built its industrial strength around a multitude of locally-owned small-scale enterprises producing low-end consumer products. A combination of the different timing of their respective industrialisation changes in the international division of labour, and domestic political conditions largely explained these divergences. Copyright © 1995 B.J. Brill, Leiden.