Its flexible labour market and highly educated workforce are particularly attractive to businesses.
Singapore has a highly educated workforce, although its population is only about 4m.
Without a highly educated workforce, businesses will be limited in their ability to develop new products and enter new markets.
It has several big assets, including its highly educated workforce and, potentially, the capital of its diaspora.
The closer a country is to the technological frontier, the more growth depends on having a highly educated workforce.
Lower corporate taxes do little to improve business investment, which is dependent primarily on the quality of infrastructure and a highly educated workforce.
In a market economy we should ask those who benefit from a highly educated workforce to pay: the shareholders of corporations.
If Australia is to compete in anything other than iron ore, it will need a highly educated workforce.Linked with this is the problem of productivity.
By either making it harder for people to go to university or putting them off the idea entirely, they are not securing the highly educated workforce Britain will surely need.
Photo: Peter Morrison/PA Wire Henry continues: First minister Peter Robinson said "many of the building blocks were in place" to take its economy to a "higher level" such as a highly educated workforce.
Jeepers, we're being told now that the government can't even afford money for college student loans, while at the same time we're constantly told that a more highly educated workforce is critical to our future economy.
