Singapore is a tiny country, so tiny you can drive across the island in just an hour. Despite its size and lack of natural resources, Singapore’s 5.6 million people enjoy one of the highest average incomes in the world, ahead of countries like Germany, France, and Japan.
新加坡是一個很小的國家，小到你可以在一個小時內駕車穿越整個島嶼。盡管面積很小且缺乏自然資源，新加坡的560萬人仍是世界上平均收入最高的國家之一，領先于德國，法國和日本等國家。
So, how did this little island get so rich?
那麽，這個小島怎麽變得如此富有呢？
Singapore doesn’t have resources like coal or oil but it does have something countries can’t buy, location. The island sits in the middle of an important trade route connecting Asia to Europe. That’s a key reason why the British decided, back in 1819, to set up a colony in Singapore. Location isn’t everything though.
新加坡沒有像煤炭或石油這樣的資源，但是它有一些國家無法購買的東西，地理位置。該島位于連接亞洲與歐洲的重要貿易路線的中間。這就是英國人在1819年決定在新加坡建立殖民地的關鍵原因。位置並不是全部。
There are several countries nearby that could have made use of their whereabouts, but they weren’t quite as successful. That’s because other ingredients go into this crazy rich Singapore recipe.
附近有幾個國家可以利用他們的下落，但是他們並沒有那麽成功。那是因爲在這個瘋狂而豐富的新加坡成功秘籍中還有其他成分。
I’m at the Raffles Hotel, which is one of the most prominent icons of Singapore’s colonial history. Unlike some of its neighbors, which wanted to separate themselves from their colonial histories, Singapore kept close ties with Britain, even after independence in 1965.
我現在在萊佛士酒店，這是新加坡殖民曆史上最傑出的標志之一。與一些鄰國希望將自己與殖民地曆史分開的新加坡不同，即使在1965年獨立後，新加坡仍與英國保持著緊密聯系。
That decision announced to the rest of the world that Singapore was open for business. That’s important because we know now that exports help to grow and expand an economy. But back then, it wasn’t conventional wisdom.
該決定向世界其他地方宣布，新加坡開始開放。這很重要，因爲我們現在知道出口有助于增長和擴展經濟。但是那時候，這不是傳統的看法。
Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, became known as the four Asian tigers, which have grown rapidly since the 1960s. Their rise was fueled by exports, industrialization, and more crucially, big doses of government intervention. This was especially true for Singapore.
新加坡，香港，台灣和韓國被稱爲四只亞洲虎，自1960年代以來迅速發展。出口，工業化以及更重要的是政府的大量幹預助長了它們的崛起。對于新加坡尤其如此。
Labor strikes were common on the island in the 1960s, even with high unemployment. On top of that, there was a housing crisis, with Singapore being home to one of the largest slum settlements in the world.
即使失業率很高，在島上工人罷工在1960年代也很普遍。最重要的是，發生了住房危機，新加坡是世界上最大的貧民窟之一。
So how do you build a more disciplined labor force to attract investment?
那麽，如何建立一支紀律嚴明的勞動力隊伍來吸引投資呢？
Well, you give them something to work for, like a house of their own, which is why one of the first Singapore government agencies set up was focused on building affordable public housing. While just nine percent of the population lived in public housing in the 1960s, that figure stands at more than 80 percent today, add in greater employer rights and strikes became extremely rare.
好吧，給他們提供了一些可以工作的東西，例如擁有自己的房屋，這就是爲什麽新加坡最早成立的政府機構之一專注于建造負擔得起的公共住房。盡管在1960年代只有9％的人口居住在公共住房中，但如今這一數字已超過80％，但增加了雇主權利，罷工變得極爲罕見。
At the same time, the government attracted foreign investment through tax incentives, growing the economy and easing unemployment, which fell from an estimated 14 percent in 1959 to 4.5 percent in the 1970s.
By the 1980s, Singapore was a regional manufacturing hub, and it was the world’s biggest producer of hard disk drives. But today, manufacturing makes up only about 20 percent of Singapore’s GDP.
同時，政府通過稅收激勵措施吸引了外國投資，促進了經濟增長並緩解了失業率，失業率從1959年的14％降至1970年代的4.5％。到1980年代，新加坡已成爲地區制造中心，並且是世界上最大的硬盤驅動器生産國。但是今天，制造業僅占新加坡GDP的20％。
Take a look at Singapore’s growth in GDP, you can see two big surges, one beginning in the late 80s and another at the start of the new millennium. Ironically, Singapore has a downturn to thank for that. You see, in 1985, Singapore went into its first post-independence recession, prompting the government to introduce new measures. State-owned companies like telecommunications were privatized to make them more competitive.
看看新加坡的GDP增長，您會看到兩次大幅增長，一次是在80年代末開始，另一次是在新千年之初。具有諷刺意味的是，新加坡對此表示感謝。您會看到，1985年，新加坡進入了第一次獨立後的衰退，促使新加坡政府采取了新措施。電信等國有公司被私有化，以使其更具競爭力。
Then at the turn of the century, service industries like finance and insurance were further liberalized. That openness helped to grow the share of services from just 24 percent of GDP in 1985 to more than 70 percent in 2017.
然後在世紀之交，金融和保險等服務業進一步開放。開放性使服務的份額從1985年的GDP的24％增長到2017年的70％以上。
Multinational companies began to set up regional headquarters in Singapore. That attracted even bigger players, boosting Singapore’s attractiveness to corporates and in turn its GDP.
跨國公司開始在新加坡設立地區總部。這吸引了更大的參與者，從而提高了新加坡對企業的吸引力，進而提高了其國內生産總值。現在，新加坡已被列爲世界上最容易經商的地方之一。
Now, Singapore is ranked as one of the world’s easiest places to do business. Singapore has been praised for transforming itself from a developing to a developed economy.
新加坡因從發展中經濟體向發達經濟體轉型而受到贊譽。
But do most Singaporeans feel rich? Well, not exactly.
但是，大多數新加坡人感到有錢嗎？好吧，不完全是。
Two of the most important reasons? The high cost of living and inequality. For five years in a row, Singapore has been named the world’s most expensive city, ahead of New York and London. That’s largely because of taxes on cars, making Singapore the most expensive place in the world to buy and run an automobile. It’s also the third most expensive place on Earth to buy clothes.
兩個最重要的原因？高昂的生活成本和不平等。新加坡已經連續五年被評爲全球最昂貴的城市，超過紐約和倫敦。這主要是因爲汽車稅，使新加坡成爲世界上購買和運行汽車的最昂貴的地方。它也是地球上購買衣服的第三貴的地方。
But personal care, household goods, and domestic help in Singapore tend to be less expensive than in other major cities.
但是在新加坡，個人護理，家庭用品和家政服務的價格往往比其他主要城市便宜。
While Singapore is rich in terms of GDP per capita, the median monthly salary is $3,270. That doesn’t sound too bad, but about 20 percent of that goes into a mandatory savings account. You can use that account to pay for medical bills, housing, and education, but it does restrict the purchasing power of the population.
新加坡的人均GDP很高，月薪中位數爲3,270新幣。聽起來還不錯，但是其中約有20％存入了強制性儲蓄賬戶。您可以使用該賬戶支付醫療賬單，住房和教育費用，但這確實限制了人們的購買力。
You’ve probably heard of the movie Crazy Rich Asians, which was set here in Singapore. And it’s no wonder. Because Singapore has about 184,000 millionaires, making it truly the land of the crazy rich. That’s great news.
你可能聽說過在新加坡拍攝的電影《瘋狂的亞洲富人》。這也就不足爲奇了。因爲新加坡有大約184,000名百萬富翁，所以它確實是瘋狂富人的土地。這真是個好消息。
But Singapore also has a fairly high rate of inequality, compared with other developed countries. Let’s look at the Gini coefficient, which is a scale used to calculate inequality, with zero being the most equal and one being the least.
但是與其他發達國家相比，新加坡的不平等率也很高。讓我們看一下基尼系數，它是用于計算不平等程度的標度，其中0等于最大，而1等于最小。
Singapore’s Gini coefficient, after accounting for taxes and transfers, was 0.356 in 2017. That was worse than countries like the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea, and Germany, although it fared better than some, like the United States.
在計入稅收和轉移支付後，新加坡的基尼系數在2017年爲0.356。這比英國，日本，韓國和德國等國家差，盡管表現要好于美國等國家。
Is that number that bad? That question had books like this flying off the shelves. A think tank ignited a public debate on the divide in social classes, after it found that on average, Singaporeans who live in public housing have fewer than one friend who lives in private housing. The government has called the issue of inequality a national priority, but it remains to be seen if it is a problem that can be tackled effectively.
這個數字真的那麽糟糕嗎？一個智囊團點燃了公衆對社會階層分化的爭論，居住在組屋中的新加坡人擁有少于一個居住在私人公寓中的朋友。政府已將不平等問題稱爲國家優先事項，但是否能夠有效解決這一問題尚待觀察。