I would like to support Abu Munzir's Nov 5 article, 'Can bigots develop a k-economy?'. Developing a k-economy is harder than it seems because not only is technology ever-changing but it is one business which is truly global with no limits of border and nationalities, race or religion. Our neighbour Singapore is a clear example of how difficult it is.

It is common knowledge that Singapore has had a low return on its fixed investment and experienced low productivity from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Despite spending a huge amount on information technology, engineering education and countless projects, Singapore essentially has a limited ICT industry.

Singapore has a narrow product line in hardware; its software business is entirely multinational-owned and it has no indigenous software export to speak of. Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew himself admitted that government efforts to target industry, particularly ICT, was a failure and that the success Singapore has had was due more to the free-market system they have than anything directly done by the government.

Singapore is abound with countless failed projects. Ask any long-time taxi drivers and they will tell you of all the expenses they have incurred over the years in failed government-driven projects to improve their efficiency. Even now they complain of the poor systems they have to pay for bookings, useless Internet-based systems, etc.

Government departments will tell you of their many failed projects. Few people know that many famous Singapore companies like Natsteel Electronic and Chartered Semiconductor started out as failed government projects that were revived after being taken over by foreigners.

A look at Taiwan and Hong Kong which operate on the free-market system and you will find that the incidence of failure is much less, especially in ICT. Taiwan, in particular, has had great success developing its electronics industry without any government direction. The US itself experienced low returns in investment in technology for much of the 1970s and 1980s and only reaped rewards during the booming 1990s.

Developing a k-economy is very, very hard. Artificial hindrance makes the task literally impossible. While the writer did not provide comprehensive evidence, he has pointed out most of the obstacles in a logical form. I argue that history has already proven that it's doomed to fail.