Singapore tops two new city indices measuring connectedness

SINGAPORE has come out on top in two new city indices that are part of the Global Connectedness Index (GCI) released on Tuesday.

The two indices are the Globalisation Giants index (which compares the size of cities' international interactions) and the Globalisation Hotspots index (which parallels the depth dimension of the country-level GCI and ranks the cities with the most intense international flows of trade, capital, people and information compared to their internal activity).

The GCI, DHL's fourth edition, found London and New York to be third and fourth on the Globalisation Giants index, and only 47th and 76th on the Globalisation Hotspots index, respectively.

In terms of the world's most connected country, the Netherlands retained its top rank, while Europe held on to its pole position as the world's most connected region.

All but two of the top 10 most globalised countries in the world are located in Europe, with Singapore and the United Arab Emirates as outliers.

North America is the second most globally connected region and leads on the capital and information pillars, with the United States as the most connected country in the Americas.

Overall, the US is ranked 27th out of the 140 countries measured by the GCI.

The index said North America had the largest gain in overall global connectedness during the past two years, followed by South and Central America and the Caribbean.

Countries in South and Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa suffered a drop in their average levels of global connectedness.

The index, which provides an analysis of the state of globalisation around the world, found that global connectedness, measured by cross-border flows of trade, capital, information and people, surpassed the 2007 pre-crisis peak during 2014.

Globalisation in post-crisis years slowed, but the world was about 8 per cent more connected in 2015 than in 2005.