This article examines the high-road and clustering strategies in Singapore. The focus will be on the circumstances and factors governing the feasibility of a high-road strategy and on the implications for cluster development within national borders. While substantial results have been achieved as far as upgrading of the industrial structure is concerned, this appears to hold much less with regard to the aim of localized cluster development. Upgrading has been accompanied by the partial disintegration of the local production structure and regionalization of the production system. In relation to the relevance of the analysis for European peripheral economies it is important to account for the set of specific local and regional conditions that inspired the industrial development path of Singapore.