MIAMI & SINGAPORE: what 2 global hubs half the world apart share in common

The Economist, the British weekly newspaper focusing on international affairs, ranked Miami at the first place amid the top prominent 10 global cities, ahead of Singapore #2, Dubai #3, and New York #4.

This index, published in early June 2023, considered 4 different performances during the past 3 years: GDP growth, population growth, real estate prices, and office vacancies.

As an international business advisor, and a Miami resident, who regularly commuted between Miami and Singapore for over 15 years, and lived in Singapore, it’s been a natural choice for me to be based in Miami and Singapore for my business advisory focused on market-entry strategy in the US market and the ASEAN marketplace, and it’s easy for me to compare these two cities that at first sight seem so different, and indeed they are, but also share a lot of common features from both business and lifestyle perspectives.

Generally Singapore is being compared to other Asia-Pacific business hubs for a wide variety of metrics ranging from business and trade performances to quality of life, cost of living and lifestyle, with Singapore and Hong Kong as the most familiar city-pair taken into account as term of reference.

Miami and Singapore have long been the benchmark for global business and city hubs, elevating the bar of city quality and setting new standards on the lifestyle front as well in redesigning the business environment, the urban landscape, and the attractiveness for investors, start-ups and new business ventures.

Miami is a world icon, a gateway for business and a reference for lifestyle, it has always been driving and adding new trends in art, design, luxury residential, hospitality, fashion, and style, to become a model and a source of inspiration.

Singapore has always been business-driven resulting in being today a unique business-friendly, corruption-free, bureaucracy-free business environment that elevated the island state to #3 in the list of Global Financial Centers, and only 37 points from New York (#1) and 8 points from London (#2) as per the GFCI 33 index published in March 2023.

Miami and Singapore are culturally diverse and display sophisticated authenticity, a unique breed of cities that became what they are for a unique combination of factors such as a geographic challenge turned into a strategic advantage to become key regional hubs and innovation centers, a vision resulting in a benchmark rarely seen elsewhere in the world, a load of opportunities caught at the right moment, and a strong desire to become a role model for locals to enjoy and be proud of, and visitors and investors to appreciate, but difficult to copy and paste to be replicated in a different geo-cultural or geo-political context.

A geographic challenge turned into an advantage: Miami lies on the south-east corner of Florida, the southern-most tip of the continental United States, and with a population of 6,25 million the Greater Miami Metropolitan area comprises 3 Florida Counties (Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach) stretches along a 100 miles-long and 5 to 19 miles-wide strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Everglades, as a preferred gateway for US market-entry, and a natural strategic hub for unparalleled access connecting the US with the Caribbean marketplace and Latin America markets.

Singapore lies at the southern-most tip of the Malay peninsula, a 31 miles-wide east-to-west and 16 miles north-to-south island-state with a population of 6 million, commanding today a strategic position at the core of the rich ASEAN marketplace comprising 10 countries in South-East Asia, and gateway to the Greater China markets and the Asia-Pacific region.

A common trait for 2 global centers fully integrated and interconnected with the global economy and linking and connecting major economic regions into the world economy.

Both Miami and Singapore developed from the vision of their fathers. 

Miami flourished in a matter of just a century from a small city incorporated on 28 July 1896 with a population of 300 to current global leadership, and the driving engine has been the arrival of the railroad earlier that year, on 15 April, thanks to the vision of Henry Flagler, known as the father of Miami, who was instrumental for the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida, from Jacksonville in the north all the way down south to Key West.

Miami is at the core of the Americas, and a crossroad between the world’s largest and most diversified economy, the engine for global growth and the most significant market in the world for international trade – the USA – and the Caribbean area, Mexico, and Latin America, reaching out markets comprising a population of 508 million between Canada, USA, and Mexico, 3 countries united by the USMCA Free Trade Agreement that entered into force on July 1^st 2020 substituting the previous NAFTA.

Today Miami is the driving engine of Florida’s economy that generate the 4^th largest GDP in the US, a value in line with that of Spain or Indonesia, and should Florida be an independent country it would be the 15^th largest economy in the world, and part of the Trillion Dollar Club of major global economies. The Miami Metro area generated in 2022 a GDP of 420 billion dollar.

The enlightened vision of Singapore’s founding father, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, who engineered the independence of the city-state from Malaysia, and became effective on 09 August 1965, contributed in designing, creating, and developing a magnificent example of nation growth that passed from 3rd to 1st world in a matter of just 4 decades to become what is known today as the Singapore Model of Economic Development.

The only country in Asia to have the AAA credit rating, Singapore can command a business platform having forged an extensive network of 27 effective Free Trade Agreements, including the FTA with the US, signed back in 2003, and playing the role of the leading financial and business hub in South-East Asia, catering the emerging and developing markets of the ASEAN marketplace which comprises a population of 688 million, a GDP of 3.6 trillion dollar, a GDP growth rate of 5.3% (2023), and an inflow of FDI totaling US$174 billion. Singapore generated in 2022 a GDP of 600 billion dollar.

Talking about Trade, in 2022 trade between Florida and Singapore generated $621.3 million in export from Florida to Singapore, and over $2 billion from Florida to the ASEAN marketplace, while on the reverse track $312.5 million in imports from Singapore, and over $9.1 billion from ASEAN.

With Florida being a leader in the US aviation and aerospace industry (#1 for MRO operations, and #2 for aerospace products and parts manufacturing establishments), 18 Florida companies from the aviation, aerospace parts supply, airborne and ground flight data and communications software, maintenance and repair sectors attended the Singapore Airshow 2022, which is held in Singapore every second year and is Asia’s largest aerospace and defense exhibition.

Trade again, and both Miami and Singapore offer world class infrastructures enhanced with specialized logistics capabilities.

The Port of Singapore ranks as the world’s top transhipment port, the busiest port in terms of shipping tonnage, the 2^nd largest in the world after the Chinese Port of Shanghai, and recorded in 2022 a container volume with a movement of 37.3 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit, based on the 20” long intermodal container). Then when the new smarter and greener Tuas Mega Port will be operative from 2027, the new Singapore facility will be so gigantic and capable of handling up to 65 million TEUs, almost doubling the current capacity.

Half the world across and coming to our shore, the Cargo Gateway of the Americas, alias the Port of Miami, is the closest US port to the Panama Canal, ideally situated as the nexus between Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe, making it the ideal transhipment hub, and recorded a movement of 1,197,663 TEUs in 2022.

From sea to air, and Singapore Changi airport, has been voted World’s Best Airport in 2023 by Skytrax for the 12^th time, and in 2022 over 31.9 million passengers transited through this outstanding airport that has no rival in terms of style, quality, services, design, architecture, connectivity. Far from the 68.3 million passengers recorded back in 2019 but the severe contractions derived by the Covid pandemic inflicted a huge reduction in worldwide air traffic, and now Changi is back on the recovery trajectory to regain its domination in the top 10 global airports by international passengers after Dubai International and London Heathrow.

Unfortunately for the US, there’s no US airport in the top 20 world’s best (we are all well aware of the low quality of domestic airports when compared to top international gateways like Singapore, Dubai or Paris). The first US airport in the list is Seattle-Tacoma at #18 while Miami International does not even make to be listed in  the top 100. Notwithstanding this, Miami International airport (MIA) ranks also #1 US airport for international passengers (ahead of New York’s JFK airport), and recorded a hit of 50.6 million passengers in 2022 with a breakdown of 29,294,995 domestic passengers and 21,389,401international travelers. MIA’s performance was well above the record year of 2019 with 45.9 million passengers, and surpassed Orlando airport’s total in 2022 by half million.

On the cargo side the situation is reversed with Miami International airport ranking #8 as world’s busiest airport by cargo volume in 2022 handling 2,499,837 tons of cargo, and followed by Singapore Changi airport at #17 with a total of 1.85 million tons (with the US as Singapore’s 3^rd air cargo market).

On a side note, there’s the direct air link between Miami and Singapore, but Singapore Airlines flies twice daily and non-stop from Singapore-Changi to both New York-JFK and New York-Newark airports in what are the longest non-stop flights taking some 19 hours to cover a distance of 9,530 miles.

Still on the business side and Miami and Singapore are 2 magnets and shining beacons for the Luxury industry.

Miami represents the epitome of luxury living and lifestyle in all the 9 categories of luxury consumer goods:  personal luxury goods (that include: fashion, leather goods, shoes, accessories, watches, jewelry, beauty), luxury hospitality, luxury cruises, luxury cars, high-end design furniture and housewares, gourmet food & fine dining, fine wines & spirits, fine art, private jets and yacht, and continues to report a strong rising performance in all luxury categories, blending the casual-chic look with sophisticated elegance.

Indeed Miami is the US luxury capital, and continues to lead the growth of the US luxury goods market that remains steadily the largest luxury market in the world, with a market size of $113 billion in 2022, and expected to grow by a good +20% by 2028, reconfirming it’s on track in growth and performance across all major 9 segments.

Just as an indication of how extensive the luxury market in Miami is, spread along the 100 miles from Miami to Palm Beach there are 10 flagship and sales stores of the French luxury brand Louis Vuitton: nowhere else in the world there’s such a concentration of points of sales of the most luxurious and iconic brand. 

Singapore is the key regional hub for Luxury in the ASEAN region, and a top hub in Asia-Pacific, with a market size in 2022 of over $4 billion and a projection of a +20% increase by 2028 reflecting a booming performance and solid growth of the Lion City.

Singapore alone features 5 Louis Vuitton stores including 2 at Singapore Changi airport (at T1 and T3) confirming the trend of how Asian travelers spend, and a lot, in high-end luxury products even at airports.

This growth is driven by wealthy Americans who decided to elect Miami as their new residence benefitting of the tropical climate and the low tax, a move that attracted an array of luxury brands to the Miami shores, and by the younger generations of Y, Z, and Alpha who are expected to be the new  biggest buyers.

Another common trait for Miami and Singapore is continuous development in luxury residential Real Estate.

In Miami right now there 77 new luxury residential condos under construction and expected to be ready by 2024-25 bringing additional 11,500 luxury condo units to an already magnificent luxury residential market that stretches between the east of the I-95 highway and the Atlantic Ocean, from as far south as Fisher Island to Aventura, Sunny Isles, Boca Raton and up north to Palm Beach.

Among these condos, many are branded by iconic luxury brands that share impeccable design and true luxury. 

From 5*L hotel brands like The St.Regis Residences in Brickell (150 units/46 floors); The Ritz-Carlton residences in Pompano Beach, (The Beach Tower, 112 units/31 floors and The Marina Tower) and 89 units/14 floors); The Residences at Mandarin Oriental, in Boca Raton (92 units/12 floors); Four Seasons Private Residences in Fort Lauderdale (90 units/25 floors). 

To luxury cars like Aston Martin Residences in downtown Miami (391 units/66 floors). 

To luxury design like Residences at 1428 Brickell, designed by Italian archistar Antonio Citterio, developed by Arquitectonica, and featuring luxury gourmet kitchens by Italian brand Arclinea (189 units/70 floors); Casa Bella by B&B Italia, in downtown Miami, designed by Italian world-renowned architect Piero Lissoni and featuring interiors by Italian luxury furniture brand B&B (306 units/57 floors).

In Singapore, property market showcases outstanding luxury residential condos that rise the benchmark of amenities, facilities, fittings, and details, attracting internationally-acclaimed architects in designing the utmost condo, and collecting international awards.

The high-end segment includes landmarks like the deconstructivist archi-star Daniel Libeskind designed Reflections at Keppel Bay, and right now 58 new luxury residential condos are under construction, of which 10 are particularly extra luxurious adding 4,747 luxury units to the already luxurious Singapore inventory.

On the leisure side, Miami is the “Cruise Capital of the World”, and over 4 million cruise passengers transited via Port Miami in 2022, and over 1.7 million via Port everglades in nearby Fort Lauderdale. And with the addition of the new Virgin Voyages terminal at PortMiami, designed by Arquitectonica and inaugurated on July 18^th 2022, the birthday of Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, Miami will foster its role of cruise capital by adding more and more luxury leisure itineraries.

Singapore at the same time aims at becoming Asia’s passenger cruise hub after the opening of the Marina Bay Cruise Centre Singapore in May 2012, a $500 million state-of-the-art facility which welcomed 1.2 million cruise passengers in 2022.

Miami and Singapore are undoubtedly top of the class, and prove to be really Alpha Cities in creating a benchmark for global scale, unique cities with a vibe rare to find elsewhere, and a strong identity trait that redefines the business and lifestyle environments taking them to the next level.