when more country start to compete by being cheap or forcing everyone to up their tax so that they are not so competitive then singapore need to look beyond financial.
in the past we have work on multi industry to hedge against single fall in industry impacting on singapore heavily. that is good and should continue.
outside of money people try to compete by being the best in class then japan go into the only in class to be invincible in competition.
that is what singapore can learn from to be best in class and eventually the only in class.
that can only come by doing more relevant r&d in the right product that will be in demand. some time it is a bit of luck like the chinese company who make air pump for lung. etc. effort should be directed towards identifying what matters in the next 10 20 years. then put money into r&d to get best outcome.
other way is to buy out potential technology that is going to bear fruits then shoift some their business to singapore. we are after all only 3.9m true singaporean. not that difficult to provide. cost of government will need to have some review. at least temporary bring down and reward back when things grow again. if one cannot earn more then one need to reduce cost to wait for efforts to bear fruits.
开源节流 , 细水长流 , 同舟共济 , 渡过难关 .