Singapore - A Foreign Perspective...

Singapore takes centre stage for 2012 vote

By Geert De Clercq

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Royalty, heads of state and sporting celebrities are flooding into Singapore for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting on Wednesday that will chose the host city for the 2012 Summer Games.

The 3,000 to 5,000 visitors, including Spanish Queen Sofia, French president Jacques Chirac and boxing great Muhammad Ali, can expect to find a city that is very different from Moscow, where in 2001 Beijing was chosen to host the 2008 Olympics.

Singapore, a city of 4.4 million people, is one of the world's few city-states, like Monaco and Vatican City. An equatorial island at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula, its surface area is just under 700 square kilometres -- about eight times the size of Manhattan.

Although frantic building is claiming more and more green area, Singapore is known as "The Garden City". Upon leaving the spotless Changi airport, a visitor's first impression is of palm trees and pink bougainvilla blooms dripping off the flyovers.

Traffic jams are rare, because the number of cars is kept in check by a licence scheme and road pricing. London mayor Ken Livingstone, who flies in to support his city's bid, knows all about it as he introduced similar congestion charges at home.

WEALTHIEST COUNTRIES

With a gross national income of more than $21,000 (11,786 pounds) per person, Singapore is one of the world's 20 wealthiest countries and Asia's second-wealthiest after Japan.

In the mid-90s Singapore was one of Southeast Asia's "tiger economies", but the 1997 Asian crisis hit the economy hard. Singapore's trade-dependent economy has been dealt further blows since by the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2000, 9/11 in 2001, the Bali bombing in 2002 and the SARS epidemic in 2003.

As Singapore's factories struggle to compete against low-wage China, the government is steering the economy towards services, focusing on education and health and even dropping a decades-old ban on casino gambling to boost tourism.

A popular souvenir is a T-shirt that says "Singapore is a fine city" with pictures of behaviour that can get you fined, such as spitting, littering and not flushing public toilets.

It is perfectly legal to chew gum here but you cannot buy it except for medical reasons.

Most visitors' first taste of Singapore regulations is an irritating ding-dong in the taxi when the driver exceeds the speed limit.

The city-state enforces some of the world's toughest drug laws. Anyone aged 18 or over convicted of carrying more than 15 grammes (0.5 ounce) of heroin, 30 grammes of cocaine or 500 grammes (17.6 ounces) of cannabis faces execution by hanging. Several foreigners are in Singapore jails for drug trafficking.

SOCIALISING, SHOPPING

When meeting people, present your business card with two hands.

Social kissing may be the norm in bid cities Paris, Moscow and Madrid but it is not in Singapore. It is not uncommon to be asked how much you earn or pay in rent, but it is okay to be evasive.

Many Singaporeans speak a peculiar slang called "Singlish"; a staccato form of English that drops most articles and tenses and ads the word "lah" at the end of many sentences. "I used to live in London" becomes "Last time I stay in London-lah". "Can-lah" means "yes". "Cannot-lah" means "no".

A Singaporean won silver for weight-lifting in 1960, but the country has won no Olympic medals since independence in 1965.

Singapore's national sport is shopping, so it is only fitting that the IOC venue is Raffles City -- a huge shopping mall.

The five candidates to host the 2012 Summer Olympics are Paris, London, Madrid, New York and Moscow.