SINGAPORE – One of the 27 recommendations in a Nov 1 report that aims to improve competitiveness has already been implemented, with a handful of others ready to be put into effect.
The report by the public-private Alliance for Action (AfA) on Business Competitiveness is the culmination of nine months of work that included thousands of hours of meetings with businesses, trade associations, chambers of commerce and government agencies.
The establishment of the SME Pro-Enterprise Office has already been set in motion.
It was announced in late September that the office will open in the first quarter of 2025. Its mission is to gather feedback from SMEs on pain points, especially those involving more than one government agency, and then relay the input to the relevant department.
“This was set up urgently because the key feedback was that businesses found it hard to navigate through the myriad of complex government regulations,” said AfA co-chair and Singapore Business Federation (SBF) vice-chairman Mark Lee.
Most of the 27 suggestions put forward fell into three broad categories: manpower, land and the regulatory environment.
The manpower recommendations focus on boosting government grants that underpin workforce transformation, including the SkillsFuture Enterprise Credit scheme and another that offers companies $10,000 to support productivity and job transformation initiatives.
A key proposal on land focused on new industrial sites, where lease extensions of up to three years will be given to offset the construction period so that businesses can better recoup their investments over the full tenure of the 20- or 30-year lease.
A notable suggestion on the regulatory system was for greater flexibility to be exercised in helping businesses go green. Another recommendation called for a more efficient approval process for solar energy projects that will be spearheaded by the Energy Market Authority.
