The Singapore government won 47 percent of the votes in a poll by regional financial magazine FinanceAsia, the Singapore Sunday Times reported.

FinanceAsia also found that Hong Kong was viewed as Asia's top financial centre while Shanghai was perceived to have the most lucrative property sector.

The Asia 2010 survey was conducted among 369 global financial managers, bankers and government officials. It sought their views on Asia's future for the next five to 10 years.

Hong Kong's government was voted the second most competent, gaining 17 percent of the votes while China came in a close third at 15 percent.

While these statistic were not available on the magazine's website September 23, survey results published online showed 71 percent of the respondents saw China as the best bet for their investments.

Singapore and Hong Kong trailed behind the Asian giant, which has reached a formal agreement to join the World Trade Organisation after 15 years of negotiations, at six and four percent respectively.

The website also revealed that 64 percent felt North Asia would grow faster than Southeast Asia in the next 10 years.

This comes after an annual UN Conference on Trade and Developmentreport revealed that Hong Kong, a financial gateway to China, last year accounted for just under half of the 143 billion dollars of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) received by Asia.

By contrast, inflows into Southeast Asia remained "below pre-crisis level," and continued to shrink from a share of 30 percent of FDI into Asia in the mid-1990s to 10 percent last year, UNCTAD said.

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