Trade Australian retailer Cotton On got a taste of the Singapore economic development makeover treatment when it headed offshore, writes Greg Earl.
AGeelong clothing company might be an unlikely sounding candidate for the step-change strategic investment culture that has made Singapore the envy of poor (and even rich) countries around the world.
But when Cotton On took its first steps into cracking the Asian market in 2007, it quickly found the institution behind Singapore's endless reinvention - the Economic Development Board - was there with a few tips on how to get going. 
Few would have picked it at the time, but Cotton On now has more than 600 stores in 17 countries outside Australia, making it the biggest Australian-based offshore retailer. It's no surprise that 150 of those stores are managed and largely supplied via sophisticated logistics operations out of Singapore.
"We were a beneficiary of their programs," says Cotton On chief financial officer Michael Hardwick of the EDB. "They were looking for innovative, creative jobs, automated distribution, our digital ecommerce offering and the idea of using Singapore as a hub."
The Singapore crafted by the planners at the EDB celebrated its 50th anniversary at the weekend, squeezed between a remarkable past as an economic development model and a challenging future as an ageing population increasingly resents immigration and the city state's father-knows-best political culture.
Australia faces a similar challenge remaking a relationship with a country which, at times, has been our closest Asian relationship and now looms larger as both a potential key collaborator in the Asian century and a competitor.
"It wasn't all that long ago we were still pushing Australia as a regional centre for business," says AustCham Singapore president Guy Scott. "All you have to do is look at what has happened in Singapore. It's more likely companies are managing their Australian business from there."
Scott says the start-up culture is also a classic example of the tension between collaboration and competition, due to Singapore's tendency to look for opportunities and fill the gap, while Australia struggles with commercialising good ideas.
"It's difficult for the [Australian] government," Scott says. "How do you find the right balance? But if you sit still and do nothing, you will be run over."
Australia's relationship with Singapore is often overshadowed by the size, complexity and ambition of relations with countries such as China, Japan and Indonesia, but it could be called the quiet achiever. Australia is the second-biggest destination for Singaporean offshore investment after China.
That investment of $80 billion trails only Japan in terms of Asian investment in Australia (although is close to being overtaken by China) and reflects the way Singapore's powerful government-linked corporations (GLCs) and funds like Temasek Holdings, Singapore Investment Corporation and Singapore Telecommunications have commonly used Australia as a testing ground for expanding offshore.
The bonds built on education, an easy business relationship (Singapore ranks as Australia's fifth-biggest trading partner) and strategic comfort (part of the country's air force is based in Australia) are about to be expanded by an Abbott government plan to elevate Singapore to a status equivalent to New Zealand.
If the plan to allow businesses' and individuals' movement between the two countries equal to the NZ Closer Economic Relations (CER) agreement by 2025 works, Singapore would arguably be cemented as Australia's strongest relationship in the region.
Delivering the annual Singapore Lecture during his recent visit to the city state, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said: "I hope that Singaporeans will regard Australia, especially the north, as a frontier of opportunity, and that Australians will regard Singapore, as much as London, as a place to gain the world's best professional experience."
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies senior fellow Malcolm Cook questions how much scope there is for closer economic ties given the high level of bilateral trade and investment already taking place. Still, Cook says: "Singapore may be the easiest country in east Asia for Australia to relax immigration laws for given the small size of the Singapore population, the relative wealth of Singapore, the large number of Singaporeans who have emigrated to Australia already and the large and growing number of Australians working in Singapore.
"Reciprocity is easy to achieve and there is no credible threat of a Singapore 'invasion' to mobilise nationalists and unionists in opposition."
Cotton On has certainly found room to expand, with 60 stores operating across the island, although Hardwick says that was a "relatively slow build" for the fast-growing global retailer. While Singapore shopping malls are replete with the world's clothing brands, he says it has not been much more competitive than other countries and was probably the easiest place to get started.
There are now estimated to be 3500 Australian businesses with a footprint in Singapore, although Scott says that only about 30 per cent of his members are really operating there, with the balance using it as a hub for regional or even global operations.
As Asia becomes more important to Australia, he says: "If Singapore keeps getting things right, more businesses are going to be here rather than Australia. It's got the incentives, the right time zone and it's closer to the market."