Before long, the entire bar was transformed into a makeshift dance floor, covered with gyrating revelers, the bartenders serving drinks between the dancers’ ankles.

Bar-top dancing was until now an illicit — but widely practiced— outburst of personal expression. But authorities here announced last week that they intended to make it legal, part of an effort to loosen up the island-state and restore its economic vitality.

Soon, bars will be allowed not only to let patrons dance on countertops, but stay open all night to let them do it. Even Singapore's famous ban on sales of chewing gum is giving way to the country’s drive to become more competitive in the global economy. "It really is loosening up," said Naidu Gautama, a local deejay and part-owner of Sullivan’s, where a brass railing has been erected over the bars to steady dancers. "It has a lot to do with a realization by the government that the only way forward for Singaporeans is to become more creative."

Singapore’s link between raucous nightlife and international competitiveness may puzzle students of classical economics, but it is part of a wide-ranging effort to find a new niche for Singapore in the global economy. Central to that drive is to transform Singapore from a tranquil nation of compliant factory workers into a throbbing metropolis of innovators and entrepreneurs.

"If we want our people to make more decisions for themselves, and if we are to encourage a derring-do society, we must allow some risk-taking, and a little excitement," Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said as he was presented with the recommendations of a Remaking Singapore committee.

As it has grown more prosperous, Singapore has watched its competitive edge in manufacturing slip away to neighbors such as Malaysia, India and China. The global recession of 2001 and, more recently, the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome hit Singapore hard, leaving it with its highest unemployment rate in almost 20 years.

"Singapore is now facing one of the most critical periods in our history. Our economic relevance is being tested," said Goh.

Singapore is now trying to tinker with the formula that delivered prosperity to this once-squalid tropical port in just 37 years of independence.

Last year, the government convened an Economic Review Committee, which produced a range of suggestions for deregulating Singapore and making it a more nimble competitor. Alongside it, the government created the Remaking Singapore committee to come up with ways to foster a more liberal society while managing the stresses citizens will face as their economy is rapidly beat into a new shape.

"Economics doesn’t exist in isolation," said Minister of State Vivian Balakrishnan, who heads the committee.

Part of the effort to loosen restrictions on Singapore’s social scene stems from a longstanding effort to attract foreign professionals to the island, as well as to nurture its own creative class. Balakrishnan said his committee studied both London and New York. But in preparing their 100-page report, committee members faced a delicate balancing act: how to open up a society without alienating its conservative majority. A polyglot community of Chinese, Malays and Indians, Singapore was once riven by racial riots, and discussions of race remain a sensitive subject here. Most Singaporeans, moreover, remain politically conservative.

The report outlines a wide-ranging list of reforms, from promoting ethnic identity to rooting out workplace discrimination and easing censorship. In a country that has rejected the dole, it calls for creating financial assistance for the unemployed and adopting a five-day workweek. It recommends a less regimented educational system as well as more political dialogue between lawmakers and the public.

But many of the changes taking place here were initiated independently. Singapore’s 11-year ban on the sale of chewing gum, for example, fell victim to the island’s recent free-trade agreement with the United States. As part of last year’s negotiations, Singapore agreed to allow pharmacies to start selling two types of Wrigley’s sugarless gum: one for fresh breath, the other for whitening teeth.

Singapore’s government has also become a more aggressive booster of the arts, easing restrictions on films and theater. Last year, it opened a $323 million performing arts center.

The government has also begun slowly opening up to the island’s gay community. In an interview with Time magazine earlier this year, Prime Minister Goh divulged that the government had lifted restrictions on hiring gays.

But many Singapore residents say the government is merely trying to micromanage social trends that are well under way. ‘‘Nightlife in Singapore is like having a party with your parents in the house,’’ said William Moss, a California native who has lived in Singapore for seven years.

Indeed, as Carnegie’s bar heaved early Saturday morning, members of Singapore’s lesbian community gathered in one of the clutch of gay bars that has already sprung up without government sanction on the opposite end of Chinatown.

"I throw gay/lesbian parties not be cause I want to take a stand but because everyone needs an outlet," said Lisa Cunico, a local TV producer.

Singapore has also never been as prim as its reputation. On Saturday night a crowd of mostly expatriate men across town at the Top Ten disco drank and danced with scores of Thai prostitutes, one of just many such clubs in the vicinity. Prostitution is technically illegal in Singapore, but the government has for years chosen to regulate the sex trade.

Along Keong Saik Street, in one of Singapore’s oldest brothel districts, Adriana Ennab, a native New Yorker, was holding a pre-opening party for her new bar, 37. No prostitutes here, but plenty of bar-top dancing. ‘‘Women are exhibitionists,’’ she explained.

Ennab even installed a small staircase to help them climb up. ‘‘I got tired of seeing women scramble up to the bar,’’ she said.

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