Beginning in the mid-1980s, Singapore--which for two decades had sharply curtailed many forms of contact with China--began promoting itself as an alternative to Hong Kong as a "Gateway to China." In 1989 Singapore was estimated to be the fourth-largest foreign investor in the special economic zones of southern China and that country's fifth-largest trading partner; Singapore's companies were estimated to have about S$1 billion directly invested in China. Since most such investments were made in conjunction with Hong Kong-based companies, the real extent of Singapore's exposure to China may have been considerably higher.
Non-oil trade with the various EEC countries, which had been steady during the early 1980s, strengthened in 1987 and 1988. Nearly three-quarters of this increase was in exports of disk drives and integrated circuits, particularly to the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), Great Britain and the Netherlands. Overall, however, Singapore had a small trade deficit with Western Europe in 1988.
Data as of December 1989