A resort under construction in Singapore, which like Taiwan and Hong/WONG MAYE-E/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By KEITH BRADSHER


SINGAPORE - As trade withers around the world and freighters sit empty at anchor, some of the most vulnerable economies are proving to be small, extremely globalized trading centers like Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan - and that is prompting a rethinking of their economic development strategies.

Half a century of swiftly growing exports, accompanied by an expansion into international services like finance, has transformed all three economies’urban areas into some of the world’s most modern cities. Millions of farmers have been lifted out of poverty. But that progress has now been thrown into reverse with some of the world’s steepest plunges in economic activity.

In Singapore, where manufacturing still dwarfs finance in employment and share of economic output, tens of thousands of factory workers have been cut back to three or four days a week and their wages per hour reduced as well.

In Taiwan, the crucial electronics sector has put close to 200,000 workers on long-term unpaid vacations as exports have plummeted by more than half. In Hong Kong, a desperate woman who had lost her job threatened suicide while speaking to the territory’s chief executive, Donald Tsang, during a callin radio show last month.

In all three, the ever rising wave of global economic troubles is known as the“financial tsunami.”But it is the collapse of exports, not financial markets, that is prompting questions about how to limit vulnerability in the future.

“The financial tsunami makes it possible to rethink our economic development strategy as to whether we should rely so much on exports,”President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan said in an interview in Taipei.“When the times were good everyone praised us - now times are bad, we think we should attach more emphasis on domestic demand instead of putting all our eggs in one basket.”

Exporters in East Asia are suffering particular harm now because retailers and other importers in the West have not just cut back their orders to match falling sales. Importers have gone much further, often halting orders so as to draw down inventories to low levels consistent with a weak economy.

The standard policy prescription for most Asian countries in the current downturn is to build up domestic demand and reduce their dependence on exports for growth. But that may not be so easy.

Stimulating consumption has long been difficult in East Asia, and seldom more so than when citizens are especially leery of borrowing and worried about losing their jobs. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore have the added problem of aging populations with strong traditions of saving a lot and consuming little.

Singapore, where the population is just 4.6 million compared with Taiwan’s 23 million, is particularly vulnerable to a decline in trade. The country is shifting its strategy to luring more but smaller foreign investments from medium-size companies. But in the short term,“there’s no hope for us if the global economy goes down,”said Philip Yeo, the special adviser to the prime minister for economic development.

Small economies are trying in different ways to strengthen ties to China, the last economy in East Asia that combines a large domestic market and a faint glow of growth.

But few in the region now want to see further expansion of the role of exports in their economies.

“The tsunami won’t last forever, so we will still attach a lot of importance to exports,”said President Ma of Taiwan.“But perhaps the percentage won’t be that large.”