Can you gain success without much resources? Yes!
Let's look into the history book......
At first glance, Hong Kong and Singapore are undeniably similar. Both are small densely populated city-states with a predominantly Chinese population of immigrant stock. Despite having virtually no natural resources, their strategic locations and excellent harbors led the British to acquire them in the early nineteenth century for the primary purpose of trading; Hong Kong was to become a center for the China trade while Singapore was founded to counter the Dutch monopoly in South-East Asian maritime commerce.
In their roles as British free ports, both economies prospered from entrepot trade and later “diversified … into the production of labor-intensive manufactures for the world markets. Hong Kong did so in the early 1950s when its entrepôt trade with China was closed off by trade embargoes following China’s involvement in the Korean War.
Singapore’s export-oriented industrialization took off only after its separation from Malaysia in 1965. In the 1970s, both city-states moved into services, including finance, transport and communications, and tourism. In both places, export-led growth, accompanied by slowing population growth, brought full employment and rapidly rising standards of living. They’re also among the few countries in the world whose foreign trade exceeds their GDP.(Kenneth Tan, May 2002)
Tin :- Besides ample land, the Malay Peninsula also contained substantial deposits of tin. International demand for tin rose progressively in the nineteenth century due to the discovery of a more efficient method for producing tinplate (for canned food). From the 1840s the discovery of large deposits in the Peninsula states of Perak and Selangor attracted large numbers of Chinese migrants who dominated the industry in the nineteenth century bringing new technology which improved ore recovery and water control, facilitating mining to greater depths. By the end of the century Malayan tin exports (at approximately 52,000 metric tons) supplied just over half the world output. Singapore was a major center for smelting (refining) the ore into ingots.
Rubber :- While tin mining brought considerable prosperity, it was a non-renewable resource. In the early twentieth century it was the agricultural sector which came to the forefront. The cultivation of rubber-yielding trees became commercially attractive as a raw material for new industries in the West, notably for tires for the booming automobile industry especially in the U.S. Cultivation on estates generated economies of scale. In the 1870s the British government organized the transport of specimens of the tree Hevea Brasiliensis from Brazil to colonies in the East, notably Ceylon and Singapore. By 1921 the rubber acreage in Malaysia (mostly in the Peninsula) had reached 935 000 hectares (about 1.34 million acres) or some 55 percent of the total in South and Southeast Asia while output stood at 50 percent of world production. Singapore was a major centre for rubber based manufacturing.
This is a very good example where YOU can gain success without much 'resources' -understanding and gaining the formula of success is essential . Let's continue on the history.....The resource rich country awakes!
The Federation of Malaysia, formed in 1963, originally consisted of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah. Due to internal political tensions Singapore was obliged to leave in 1965. Malaya is now known as Peninsular Malaysia, and the two other territories on the island of Borneo as East Malaysia. Prior to 1963 these territories were under British rule for varying periods from the late eighteenth century. Malaya gained independence in 1957, Sarawak and Sabah (the latter known previously as British North Borneo) in 1963, and Singapore full independence in 1965.
Malaysia is generally regarded as one of the most successful non-western countries to have achieved a relatively smooth transition to modern economic growth over the last century or so.Since the late nineteenth century it has been a major supplier of primary products to the industrialized countries; tin, rubber, palm oil, timber, oil, liquified natural gas, etc. However, since about 1970 the leading sector in development has been a range of export-oriented manufacturing industries such as textiles, electrical and electronic goods, rubber products etc. Government policy has generally accorded a central role to foreign capital, while at the same time working towards more substantial participation for domestic, especially bumiputera, capital and enterprise.
By 1990 the country had largely met the criteria for a Newly-Industrialized Country (NIC) status (30 percent of exports to consist of manufactured goods).While the Asian economic crisis of 1997-98 slowed growth temporarily, the current plan, titled Vision 2020, aims to achieve "a fully developed industrialized economy by that date. This will require an annual growth rate in real GDP of 7 percent" (Far Eastern Economic Review, Nov. 6, 2003).
Malaysia is perhaps the best example of a country in which the economic roles and interests of various racial groups have been pragmatically managed in the long-term without significant loss of growth momentum.
So what's the secret of gaining success without much 'resources'?...soon!
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