“Ranking remains
relatively stable”
World Bank over-estimated earlier rankings, there’s no drop in global ranking, says Statistics Department letter.
Aug 1, 2003

The following letter (published in Sunday Star on July 31) refers to the article “Economy: Global ranking drops” in our website http://www.littlespeck.com/content/economy/CTrendsEconomy-050711.htm
(full text):

“Seah commented that “several years of economic weakness” had resulted in Singapore’s economic ranking in terms of per capital GDP declining from “its peak as the world’s top eight in 1997” to today’s 22nd position.

He also made a similar observation on Singapore’s ranking in per capita GDP at purchasing power parity, adding that “between 1999 and 2003, Singapore’s per capital GDP at purchasing power parity (has declined) from US$27,800 to US$23,700”.

We wish to clarify that Singapore’s per capita GDP was in the past over-estimated by the World Bank, which compiles and publishes the World Development Indicators.

It had used Singapore’s resident population (comprising Singapore citizens and permanent residents) instead of Singapore’s total population as the denominator in its computation.

Seah’s observation of Singapore’s “population jump” from “three million in 1996 to 4.18 million in 2003” is also incorrect as the former refers to Singapore’s resident population while the latter refers to Singapore’s total population.

Since 2001, the World Bank had re-computed and published Singapore’s per capita GDP using total population as the denominator.

However, if comparisons were made using the earlier series for earlier years but more recent series for recent years, users can conclude wrongly that there has been a significant fall in Singapore’s per capita GDP when none had, in fact, occurred.

The data on per capita GDP drawn from the latest IMF database, which in turn draws from the World Development Indicators, shows that Singapore’s per capita GDP at purchasing power parity has in fact increased from US$22,185 in 1999 to US$24,495 in 2003, and further to US$28,228 in 2005.

Singapore’s ranking in these years has remained relatively stable at around 22.
DR SOON TECK WONG
Director (Economic Accounts)/ for Chief Statistician, Singapore

Seah Chiang Nee comments:
I thank Dr. Soon for clarifying that World Bank per capita GDP figures in 1999 had “over-estimated” and had revised them. On this he knows best, and I defer to his set of statistics. He runs a credible, transparent operation.

But it is a fact that then and now, there have been conflicting reports mainly with the CIA Fact Book. In fact its latest estimated (2004) of our per capita GDP at US$27,800 ranking it globally at 29th, rather than 22nd as we had it. (http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html)

Way back in 1999, it ranked us 5th at US$26,300.
(http://www.photius.com/wfb1999/rankings/gdp_per_capita_0.html)

And a year later, in 2000, it was US$26,500, dropping to 7th rank. (http://www.geohive.com/charts/ec_gdp2.php In a report, it said)

In 2001, the CIA Fact Book commented: ”Economy - overview: Singapore is blessed with a highly developed and successful free-market economy, a remarkably open and corruption-free business environment, stable prices, and the fifth highest per capita GDP in the world.”
(http://workmall.com/wfb2001/singapore/singapore_economy.html)

Today, at US$27,800 it stands 29th according to the same source, which had ranked us 5th in 1999. (http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html)

I was indeed wrong in reporting a population hike from 3m in 1996 to 4.18m in 2003”, without mentioning the latter includes permanent residents, many of whom had arrived during this seven-year period. Sorry about that.

At any rate, there must be a reason for the significant differences with the CIA Fact Book, past and present. It may be due to a different definition of population. That’s just my guess.

As a Singapore website, we’d like to centralise our reports around figures given out by our own Statistics Department, but must point out the latter, too.

Unlike our insignificant size, The CIA Fact Book is a major global reference website, which many institutions depend on, including American corporations.
The Editor,
Seah Chiang Nee
Littlespeck.com