annenberg media ♪ captioning sponsored by annenberg/cpb narrator: the region of southeast asia and south pacific includes a multitude of small island nations and one large continent country. here we find economic tigers and raw-material producers.

state economies benefit from their relative location on the pacific rim, and multinational corporations take advantage of shipping opportunities offered by proximity to the world's largest ocean. we focus on the tiny city-state of singapore. despite being the smallest country in southeast asia and lacking natural resources, it is one of the wealthiest states in the world and the gateway to southeast asia. american comter giant hewlett-packard searched for a base to spearhead its push to asia. man: we basically stock and distribute hewlett-packard products, mainly computer-related products like pcs-- personal computers-- printers, plotters, scanners

and all kinds of related peripherals for personal computers. and we distribute throughout the asia-pacific region, and that covers all the way from korea to india, down to australia. narrator: the company needed a centralocation, but that alone wouldoteenough t. a mber of cities could claim toe cad near the center of the thriving asian region. in the end, hewlett-packard chose the tiny island statsingap. soin: one of the main reasons we are in singapore is because of the infrastructure. singapore is very centrally located in asia. in addition, we have very good air, sea, rail and port facilities that allow us to bring things in and take things out very quickly and very efficiently.

narrator: singapore has the largest container-handling seaport in the world-- number one in sheer tonnage moved and second only to hong kong in container traffic. singapore's location on the strait of malacca puts it on one of the most important transport routes in the world. woman: singapore sits right at the tip of the peninsula of malaysia. it's kind of in between the south china sea as well as the indian ocean. a lot of ships that want to go from the pacific ocean to the indian ocean, they all have to come down through singapore and then cross over the other... to the other side. in that sense, its location is favorable. but it also has a natural harbor with nice deep water, and that has facilitated its port activities. narrator: the port is closely integrated with singapore's changi airport,

asia's second-busiest. here, freight is exchanged between air and sea. but for such a busy place, singapore is quite small-- just about 400 square miles, only about a quarter the size of rhode island. more than four million people are packed into this tiny island state. 76% are ethnic chinese, 14% are malay and about eight percent are indian. ( indianusic playing ) singapore has a long tradition as a base for foreign traders. its can be seenr history in the architectural reminders of its days as a british colony. that tradition continues with singapore serving as a popular location

as the headquarters for multinational corporations and as a home for their employees. poon: singapore is a great place to live. it's safe, they have schools for their kids, but that all of their factories are either in malaysia an hour to fly to jakarta,ilandu they would rather make singapore their home base, have an office there where they process the information, but really to go out to malaysia and indonesia and thailand for their factories, where the real processing and assembly takes place. narrator: linking materials, processing and assembly to global operations requires the movement of massive quantities of freight. singapore handles more than 15 million containers a year. its relative location allows it to feed directly into shipping routes linking asia, europe

and the united states. singapore is very dependent on american markets. most of its exports go to the united states. in fact,ll of asia is very dependent on the u.s. there are also a lot ofmerican semiconductor in southeastsia,anies and they all use singapore as sort of their export platform to bring their pducts back after they have enssembled inoueastsia, to bring ibackough singapore to t utestates. narrator: is re-exporting of products makes singapore very dependent on its hinterlands. poon: more than a hundred percent of its income is derived from expos alone. muchwhich means to sayare ally re-ebasically singapore acts as an entrepôt port; it behaves like ainrmediary point between the hinterland and the rest of the world.

it collects products from malaysia, from indonesia, and thent distributes to the markets in the world. narrator: new ships arrive every few minutes. computer systems coordinate eir movements, assign berths and allocate the equipment needed to unload. singapore's work forces well m asthat relies on sophisticated the information technologyload. to keep track of the mountains of freight. and all the information's handled by computer technology. there is no way we could do it manually, because we have something like maybe a thousand orders a day, and we can't track that manually, so it is completely through our computer system. rrator: byosing sin, wlett-packard was able to conduct its business more efficiently.

if ourroducts come in by sea, we can get them inurisibutioceerwiin aay. and if it comes byir, sicay i. inurisibutioceerwiin aay. narrator: changi airport is a vital extension of the seaport. increasingly, goods arrive ship from southeast asia to be air-freighted to places like europe and australia. maximizing its gateway location maingapore a wealthy country. ling sndards here are among the highest in the world, ranking in the top 30 globally. in the 20 years before the asian crisis, except for a period in the mid- 1980s and perhaps early 1980s, singapore's growth rate was very stellar-- in the range of seven to ten percent. it took england 200 years to achieve its current standard of living; the same sarof livingyears that england has today.

narrator: that accelerated development ishe rof economibalizat and a major and integral party t of singapore economy. this top-down approach differs from other models of economic developmen singapore's government exerts strong conol over more an just the economy. the western model of economic development is that when you libelize an economy, en politicaliberalization will also accompany economic liberalization. w, in asia, it's the exactpposite. you have economic liberalization happening for the last threeecades or so and no political liberalizatio until the early 1990s. we saw political liberalization taking place ikorea, and no political liberalizatio in taiwahas been in powergaporey fothe last three decades so the question is, why were they able to hold on to power for so long

at the same time that they were ae to generate economic development on t island? now, some peop have termed the country's way of mwhich means to sayevelopment the that the government puts economic development as its top priority over other sociel goals like democratization, ke and it appearss, at the population agrees. so tand the populationcontct bee that as long as the government delivers economic growth-- and it was pretty good so taat keeping its promiset bee 30 years or so-- or procrastination of individual rights, of human rights, of political civic liberties.

willmy impression isngehaan? that the social contract between siaporeans and the govement will continue fosomei. the lation is very used to pate. so in some ways, i think that the populatio is not ready to be independent, and the government knows that, and basically it's top-down system. is noat's very strikidependent, and the gin singapore.ws that, narrator: singapore began with a favorable location, but it has succeeded ahead of other locations because of the commitment to investment in people, facilities and infrastructure-- factors which encourage its use as a regional transport hub. but other regional port locations, like malaysia, hong kong, kaohsiung in taiwan, aneven shanghai are not simply looking on with envy.

they are undertaking their own development programs and steadi attracting more business. singapore is feeling ireasing pressurerom their competition. and e late 1990s saw the asian economic csis-- slowdowns in some soutast asian counies had a domino effect on singapore. to stay ahead, singapore needs to keep finding new ways to set itself apart. it's now a global hub ofechnological innovation-- a wired island. singapore has a long-term sttegy to develop into an information society, and that's been one of the major things that's been happening in singapore-- to allow your companies and your headquarters and regional headquarters or international headquarters to communicate with the rest of the world. poon: singapore is a very wired island. it doesn't have natural resources the way, say, the other countries arou the region have,

so what it does is it makes a lot of investments in its people. and when it comes to it, that's people resources. so what singapore has actively been promoting is to try and get the island as wired as possible, whican infrastructure that's ready to goplace whenou need to fax, that's veell set out in singare,. just because it sees itself as a telecommunications hub. sein:we he investy inorts-- both seaport and airport facili-- plus telecommunications facilities. and we have also focused on human resource management, in promoting and developing management know-w antechnical know-how to suort all ese tivies it's really a combination of all these factors that has made singapore so successful. narrator: tiny singapore has made the most of its location on one of the worls busiest warways.

perched on the pacific rim, singapore has attracted investments by multinational corporations and built itself into one of the region's most successful economic tigers. the region of southeast asia and south pacific includes the continent countrya while several of this region's aeconomic tigersc we will see how australia's physical geographyrces, aus. has influenced its economy and explore its changingemograics. and stngthened its aits asian connecon,rope austraa seeksto make et of its location along the pacific m. australia is a dry land. two-thirds of the continentis et

or semidesert. but is vast, arilandscape has lo been the foundation of australia's economy. while much of the enviroent is harsh, large areas of the interior are suitable for grazing cattle and sheep. ( cows mooing ) and beneath the ground are coal, iron, gold. trade in minerals and wool have long spurred aust. man: when you've got the quality of resources, the quality of agricultural lands that exist in australia, you are always going to compete well on worlmarkets. and austraa's early economic development in the 20th century you are always going to compete well on worlmarkets. was driven by competitiveness in rural and mineral commodities, and investmes in those areas continue, and ght through the '80s and '90s and w into the 21st century, australia remains a highly significant world exporter of rural commoties and of minerals.

narrator: although australians dependn the ouack, ey live on the coast. omegin of europeaseme, the nature of the landscape had determined how and where the country's people live. the harshrestcts wherenvironme oplean live. there is only a small part of the contine that canupport agriculre and hence can supporpopulation. in fact, 90% of the population wiin 1ilometers of coastin aitn,e s- and our local market is in fact, 90% of tvery limited-- so we havelways looked outsi and our local market is in fact, 90% for the sale of our commodities. we have needed sometimes processing and administration, anthat processing s keace in cities. activity tfrom some physical pressuresas s evolve to a situationhere we have a small number of large cities

tted around the coasine. narrator: to a sithis situation have a smallcontinues today. cities in the offices of mitsui, people handle the processing and export of iron ore, coal, metals, chemicals, food, naturagas and wood chips. and they do it all without setting foot outside of australia's largest city, sydney. inll, three-quarters of the pution live in cities, making australia o ofthe ms in the world. kevin o'connor has eloredftthe s of theewarge cities that lie on the edge of the connent. in effect, from the earestimes the cities were controlling the country, but the cities themselves depended upon the export markets d coact with thstf world. sohe cies on the australian coast

were the gatewayities. ey providee connection and they provided linkagesst between those markets and the restf rural australia. narrator: australia's european settlement began with the wool industry. within 5years, sheep grazers had opened up huge tracts of land in search of new pastures. the new land was well suited to wool production, and wool was also an ideal export; it was able to wittand the long journey back to britain's woolen mills. the low cost of oduction and the high quality of the wool ensured profitability. by the mid-1830s, austraa's economy was well and truly riding on the sheep's back. as more new land was opened up, wheat farmers followedthe .

evenally, newly developed agricultural techniques and machiry reduced the numbers of people needed to grow and harvest wheat, while sheep grazing was never labor-intensive. paradoxically, there were more jobs generated in the cities than there were in rural locations. there were jobs in offices, there were jobs in shiing companies, narrator: thus, rural wealth created andurban jobs,s. and the cities developed into business centers. when railways arrived in the 1850s, freight lines began to stretch inland from these port cities, bringing ever more commodities to the coast epand as iustry expanded

animmigration was relied on for uincreasingly grew as source of new labor, most newrrivals settle in the coastal cities-- australia's cities were founded on the externaconnections of its rural production to britain, anthe delopment of mafacturing and mining. it remains much the same today, except that britain is much less important as aestination for australia's products. excepe japanesetain is mtrading company mitsui became australia'slargesexpr of minerals and other primary resources in the 1990s. mitsui's regional headquarters are in sydney, even though its business involves mines in the isolated areas of the country's west and north