

Announcing the AWS Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region - democracy
http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2010/04/29/announcing-asia-pacific-singapore-region/

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hga
Any speculation or ideas on why Amazon chose Singapore?

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andyjdavis
Excellent infrastructure, politically and socially stable, wealthy and with a
government that takes an active role in fostering business growth. There's
lots of tech companies there although they're mostly focussed on electronics
traditionally.

From <http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2798.htm> "Singapore was faced with a
lack of physical resources and a small domestic market. In response, the
Singapore Government adopted a pro-business, pro-foreign investment, export-
oriented economic policy framework, combined with state-directed investments
in strategic government-owned corporations."

They're a small country with negligible natural resources but their government
has made lots of big bets over the years which have generally paid off.
Investing really heavily in education. Actively going after the shipping
industry (Singapore is now the busiest port in the world) and a few other
industries they see as being big in the future. "state-directed investments in
strategic government-owned corporations" is the key phrase in that quote. I
sometimes get the feeling they run the place like an enormous government
backed VC fund.

My guess is that the Singapore government has an active hand in this as part
of a broader effort to build the tech industry in Singapore. Having a
government around who is willing to get involved and bet big on the future
would be appealing for a company like Amazon.

Another link. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Singapore>

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hga
Yes, those are all good reasons, and as a delighted reader of " _The Box: How
the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger_ "
([http://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-
Economy...](http://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-
Economy/dp/0691136408/) Highly Recommended!) I knew about their leading role
as a container port although not that they're now the biggest.

What I'm sort of musing about is why Japan wasn't chosen. If this were the
'80s it would be much more likely, but compared to then Japan is now less
politically and socially stable, it's been mired in what is now it's second
Lost Decade, the government's "active role in fostering business growth" is
gone or incompetent at doing that per se and between the economics and
demographics I don't know of anyone who I respect who thinks it has a future.

And I suspect the economic center of gravity of east Asia has moved away from
Japan and likely in Singapore's direction. Singapore has of course been hit by
the Great Recession, but not (as of yet) catastrophically so, so they're
suitably hungry.

If the guess that both of us have made that the Singapore government had a
hand in this is correct, it's obviously easier to deal with a small city state
than a much larger nation.

