Growth of Regional Trade in Modern Southeast Asia: The Rise of Singapore, 1819–1913

Abstract

This chapter discusses one of the distinctive patterns of trade growth in nineteenth-century Southeast Asia by shedding light on the development of Singapore's regional trade. Since the early nineteenth century, Singapore acted as an emporium involving various commodities and merchants, and became a port facilitating commodity circulations through regional trade with neighbouring countries as well as long-distance trade with faraway regions. By the mid-nineteenth century, industrial products and Southeast Asian produce became the primary contributors to Singapore's trade growth, and Chinese merchants served as intermediaries between Western and native traders. Singapore's regional trade began to reinforce the connection between production and consumption within the region by accelerating the intra-regional circulation of foodstuffs, which was instrumental in the remarkable growth of primary goods' exports from Southeast Asia after the 1870s. The regional trade promoted the formation of the international division of labour with the Western industrial economy. This expansion allowed Singapore's trade to integrate the local trading systems of Southeast Asian countries, which maintained autonomous dynamics within their respective domestic markets.