Quora Answer: Why is Malaysia’s GDP Stronger than Hong Kong’s & Singapore’s?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Why is Malaysia’s GDP stronger than Hong Kong’s and Singapore’s?”

Gross Domestic Product is the measure of all the goods and services a country or territory produces.  The larger the population of the country, the larger the GDP is supposed to be.  By itself, it is not particularly useful.  The nominal GDP does not take into account inflationary pressure, currency risk, and relative cost of living.  What you really need to look at is the GDP per capita, at purchasing power parity.  This is the cost of goods and services produced divided by the population.  This gives an indicator of productivity. Going by that list, Singapore is in the top 5, Hong Kong is in the top 10, and Malaysia is far down that list in the top 50.