A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science of the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1975

Initially, in this research, a short and brief account of Singapore's industrialization objectives and problems encountered during the period of industrialization is presented and discussed. From this, an analysis of the development and characteristics of the petroleum and chemical industries based on the period of 1966 to 1972 has been considered. This is followed by a detailed study of the growth and performance of the petroleum and chemical industries, which are analyzed in terms of number of establishments (9 and 197 establishments, respectively); employment (possess 1.6% and 5.2% of the total workers of all manufacturing industries, respectively); import (contribute 13% and 7% of the total imports trade, respectively) and export (control 15% and 6% of the total export trade, respectively); composition of employment; capital intensity (S$212,615.6 and S$12,629.7 per worker, respectively); input (possess 36. 2% and 5.3% of the total input of all manufacturing industries, respectively) and output (consist of 29 .9% and 5. 7% of the total output of all manufacturing industries, respectively); labor productivity (S$94,277.2 and S$10,383. 7 per worker, respectively); various costs of production; sales (comprise _ 29. 4% and 5.6% of the total sales of all manufacturing industries, respectively); employees' remuneration (S$16,782 and $$3,838 per employee per annum, respectively) and production capacity utilization (utilize 68.9% and 35. 4% of the production capacity in terms of output value, respectively). The mutual linkage between the petroleum, the chemical and other industries and their merit in the industrialization program are then identified and presented. The impact of internal and external factors which affect the future growth of the petroleum and chemical industries are subsequently assessed by a detailed study of the present and future changes inside or outside the Republic. A industrial system dynamics model of the petroleum and chemical industries is presented and a simple program is demonstrated. Besides, time series analysis of some economic factors are also computed by computer programming. Finally, the present state of development of the petroleum and chemical industries are summarized and recommendations are listed for future study.