Abstract

The economic ramifications of the creation of a knowledge-based economy (KBE) are that it would increase the competitiveness of a country and at the same time increase its stock of knowledge for future economic innovations. In the last couple of decades, many countries have shown high economic performance by knowledge creation and diffusion to the various sectors of the economy. Malaysia and Singapore, among Southeast Asian countries, have shown tremendous success in economic development by transforming their economies and have moved on to creating knowledge-based economies. This paper explores the technological infrastructure development in Southeast Asian knowledge-based economies using a comparative study of Malaysia and Singapore. The analysis shows that Singapore is one of the most successful countries in the region that pursued appropriate policies to develop its technological infrastructure towards becoming a knowledge-based economy.