Back to the future: chips will again power Singapore's economic growth

WEAKNESS in the semiconductor industry is, by now, a mandatory factor to be mentioned in any discussion about Singapore's economic slowdown.

As Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat highlighted earlier this month, however, it would be a mistake to let the global cyclical slowdown affect longer-term assessments of the industry's importance, both worldwide and for Singapore specifically.

Accounting for more than 7 per cent of gross domestic product, the semiconductor industry is one of the largest in Singapore's manufacturing sector. After a strong perfor…