From the preceding analysis, by 1989 when the United States withdrew its GSP benefits from Singapore, a number of factors have helped to soften the impact. While the government would like to delay the graduation for as long as possible since GSP benefits are like the icing on the cake or added bonus without reciprocity in costs, its economic restructuring strategies have paid off by the time the decision could not be further postponed. A more durable and resilient strategy is to ensure international competitiveness, which the government has been promoting since the recession in 1985.

Although not specifically conceived to compensate for the loss in GSP benefits, the growth triangle, involving Johor and the Riau Islands which got off formally and more rigorously in 1989, is an added factor. Such relocations of investments away from Singapore both as a result of push and pull factors have been going on for some time under market dynamics. With official government sanction and co-operation, the process has simply been accelerated and magnified. However, not all relocations to Indonesia and Malaysia are strictly motivated by their GSP benefits. Investors are very conscious of the uncertain mood of preference-giving countries and their political sensitivities, and the temporary nature of GSP benefits.

In other words, the GSP schemes are best thought of as benefits of a past development era in the 1960s, and now that both the recipient countries and the international environment have evolved into new entities, the GSP schemes are becoming anachronistic and burdensome. In the short term, they are merely the icing on the cake to recipient countries, but they could also hinder their long-term restructuring and international competitiveness. It may well be a blessing in disguise to lose the benefits as long as ample warning is given to prepare the countries for the graduation. In fact, the uncertainty surrounding the GSP due to the arbitrary determination by developed countries of product exclusion, ceilings, and graduation have been observed to have reduced the programme's benefits by discouraging investment in the affected industries and countries (Noland 1990).