Gan See Khem
Singapore
“Lastly, Sir, we need to develop more sources of funding research whereby our universities can compete for funds based on merit. Currently, only A*STAR offers research funding, but for the applied sciences.”
“But it is another issue when we do not take care of our locals when the time comes and they really need it. Would the Minister be able to give us an idea how the needs of those who do not qualify under the means test but are in need of subsidised care, going to be protected? The Government is now talking about introducing insurance.”
“Yes. Many of us are not familiar with buying complicated health insurance programmes with many deductibles and restrictions. Is the Government going to educate and guide us on how we can choose a health insurance plan that best fits our need and help us navigate this whole sea of unknowns? Healthcare”
“What I would like to propose is for the Government to review the definition of SME. In today's environment, the definition of SME, with less than $15 million of net assets and not hiring more than 200 employees, is outdated.”
“I would like to request that the Government review and re-appraise the Constitution which forces such extreme fiscal conservatism and promote a period of internal generated growth. I hope we are not the generation which is accused of selling the family jewels, as I talked about encouraging more aggressive fiscal policies.”
“Earlier, Mr Lim Boon Heng challenges the Singapore Business Federation and the other business chambers to go out and bring more business to Singapore.”
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“As we restructured, many of us in the private sector felt that our local banking system has not been most encouraging. As SMEs restructured and struggled with the need to transform and re-engineer, we find that the banking sector has not been supportive. And they have not been supportive also because there are fewer banks to work with. So, as local businesses restructured, we find a less than supportive banking sector, where the banks are more concerned with how they get their money back than how they are able to fund promising local SMEs and how they are able to help these local SMEs transform and grow again. Second, manpower issue. Private sector companies are competing with GLCs, statutory boards, Government sector and MNCs for the same small talent pool. But, private sector enterprises are not able to compete and offer such high salaries, good benefits, as well as opportunities for growth as the larger organisations in the public sector, the MNCs and GLCs. Hence we see that the main problem of running local SMEs is that we are working with very, very small manpower resources. Is the Government able to help us? Yes, I think the recent budget allocation for manpower upgrading and all that will be able to help us recruit more talents into our workforce. But, for many of us in the local SMEs, this has been, and will continue to be, most challenging. Third, many of the SMEs are struggling to create new businesses out of a very difficult local operating environment. Many of us in the private sector have to contend with regulatory measures and Government agencies to seek the required support, permits, licensing, to get our businesses done. Many of the speakers before me have mentioned that the Government agencies have been very bound by rules.”
“So, the private sector welcomes the lowering of cost, keeping the CPF lower for the next two years, but we are now struggling with issues of how to transform our businesses and make it more viable. We listen to the Government's earlier encouragement to go regional. But we also realise that businesses have to be strong in their home economy before they are able to have the resources and the capacity to go regional. In Singapore, many of the companies, the ones that I represent, also do not find it easy to grow. May I use this opportunity to also illustrate a very personal experience. When the recession hit Asia in 1997/98 we see, at Health Management International (HMI), much fewer patients from the region coming to Singapore. We are a medical group and we see fewer foreign patients. We also see many of the patients, who used to come to use our facilities, now going to restructured hospitals. They are going to restructured hospitals because their income is going down or they fear for their own job security. So they are moving to restructured hospitals where the services are good and where they are able to receive subvention. There is no way for a private sector hospital group to be able to compete with the subvention of restructured hospitals. For this reason, our performance, as a commercial enterprise, dipped significantly, especially last year, as we got weaker. Last year, we hit a very difficult patch and HMI lost money. It is not news. Many of the members in the business sector were in the losing position the last two years. What do we do in helping local enterprises restructure and respond, and how can we ensure that our local enterprises are able to build their strength in the local economy and move out to compete regionally?”
“Mdm Deputy Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to raise some of the issues regarding Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's speech on the Budget. There are many speakers ahead of me who have brought up various issues regarding the Budget on manpower training and promoting private enterprise. I come to you at this late afternoon to put a little more personal perspective into the issue of private enterprises and its development in Singapore. I represent the business community and both the Singapore Business Federation and the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry had made responses to the Budget Statement, and both these associations have welcomed the Deputy Prime Minister's pro-business budget. This is a budget that has signified that the Government is responding to the appeal of the private sector for lowering cost of doing business and giving opportunities for SMEs to develop in Singapore. Many of the Singapore SMEs have struggled since 1997 when the economic crisis hit Singapore and the rest of Asia. Many of us in the private sector have felt that the support from the Government is very much welcomed, but for many of the business sectors in Singapore, we have gone from a stage of relative strength in 1996 to today where many in the private sector are in a very weak stage. The effort to reduce the cost of doing business is welcomed, but we are also talking about Singapore now in the stage where there is reduced demand, where the market is not growing, demand is not increasing and where many people are much more cautious about consumption because of their fear of employability and financial security.”
“As such, PPP will provide the platform for the creation of more opportunity entrepreneurship, thereby enabling Singaporeans to continue to expand our economy through increased entrepreneurial activities. I would like to reiterate, Mdm Deputy Speaker, my support for the Motion proposed for debate this afternoon.”
“However, the experience of other countries has reminded us that though the opportunities for privatisation are plentiful, the path to successful business relationships and implementation of PPP nevertheless would face many challenges. I believe that for PPP to work in Singapore, we need to realistically identify the hurdles to successful PPP implementation, to develop the administrative structure to enable PPP to put into practice and to formalise an incentive system that would foster collaboration and cooperation between the two sectors for the benefit and long-term needs of the nation. The success of PPP in Singapore would depend to a large extent, on a well-thought out charter and plan that is effectively communicated to different stakeholders such as the one articulated by Temasek recently. I hope that the other GLCs and relevant Government agencies would also share their plans with us in the near future. Unlike TLCs which would primarily play the role as the co-investor, other public sector agencies can participate in many other forms of PPP which may include outsourcing, contract services, build, operate, transfer, and many other types of PPP. Successful PPP can only result if there is commitment from top public officials who are willing to be actively engaged and support the concept and taking a leadership role in the development of such partnerships. Equally important is that the private sector partners must have the relevant skills and experience in the specific area of partnership being considered. Once the partnership has been established, the public sector must remain actively involved in the programme or project not only in terms of monitoring, but also in value-adding.”
“Recently, this focus has led to discussions as to whether or to what extent the private sector should be performing many of the functions currently performed by the Government. With budget deficit reduction and the downsizing of Government agencies, the American attention on privatisation, competition and efficiency has greatly increased. In Ireland, PPP has been widely implemented, initially through modestly scaled projects, with the aim of combining the best of public and private sector expertise to create value for money and quality outcome. PPP has been encouraged through many economic sectors, such as housing, education, healthcare, local service, public utilities and transport. According to the GEM report, Ireland has the highest total entrepreneurial activity within Europe. The World Bank has also articulated their emphasis on private sector participation as engines for growth. In recent years, the World Bank has encouraged private participation not only in infrastructure development but also in human services, most prominently in education, healthcare and social security. As Singapore faces major technological transformation and a maturing economy, both the public and private sectors must share the responsibility of defining new national strategies that would unleash human creativity to enable us to innovate and adapt technologies and opportunities to our own needs. Singapore needs to build our own model for public-private partnership. Thus, it is also timely for our public sector to review the potential of PPP in their activities and to share such visions with Singaporeans.”
“However, I would like to urge the other sectors of the GLCs including the labour-linked companies (LLCs) (some of my colleagues call them NLCs), the statutory board-linked companies (SBLCs) and the press-linked companies (PLCs) to follow the example set by Temasek and share their strategic roadmap with Singaporeans. I believe that such communication would address the anxiety of the local enterprises in terms of the perceived unfair competition from GLCs. TLCs had communicated and informed Singaporeans that they intend to spearhead the development of enterprise and to partner other non-TLCs, including local SMEs, when venturing into more knowledge-based activities and regional markets. TLCs, in this instance, can play the role of the big brother or sister, where the case may be, to invest value-add and partner with the private sector to groom viable local enterprises to compete effectively in the regional arena. I am sure that local SMEs would look forward to further dialogues and exchanges with TLCs to work out effective and profitable collaborative arrangements. I also hope that over time, our local entrepreneurs will associate TLCs with the acronym, "tender, loving care", signifying a more pro-business Singapore. There is a renewed marked shift globally towards private-public partnership (PPP) as an engine for growth. PPP recognises that both the public and private sectors have certain advantages relative to the performance of specific tasks. Thus, by allowing each sector to do what it does best, public services and infrastructure can be provided in the most economically efficient manner. In the United States, over the last couple of years, there have been much renewed intense discussions on how the Government can work better and cost less.”
“These features are embedded in our social and economic systems and we need to actively implement some of the key recommendations of the EISC report so as to create the necessary mechanisms and structures to improve our rate of entrepreneurship activities. In view of our national goal of creating a more vibrant and more diverse economy, we need to increase the rate of public and private investment, devoted to entrepreneurial activity so as to accelerate innovation, technological development and job creation. In the Singapore economy, there are 103,000 SMEs which make up some 90% of all establishments and employ 50% of the workforce. These SMEs contribute only 35% to our GDP, whilst MNCs contribute 45% and, as I understand earlier, the GLCs contribute some 13%. This formula had worked in the past but we need to continuously improve the share of private entrepreneurial activity and create an environment whereby local enterprise can develop the capabilities, resources and size that would allow them to compete in the regional, if not, the global marketplace. The creation of such an entrepreneurship society can only benefit Singapore's economic development. As Singaporeans, we are heartened at the success of our GLCs, particularly in their ability to move into the knowledge, technology and capital intensive sectors, both locally and also in the international arena. GLCs were set up to spearhead the development of the Singapore economy and they had fulfilled their mission. That said, I hope that the GLCs would continue to play a role in spearheading the remaking of the new Singapore economy. We appreciate that Temasek Holdings had come forward and shared their new defined Charter and articulated the role of the Temasek-linked companies to all Singaporeans.”
“Mdm Deputy Speaker, I would like to support the Motion by Mr Leong Horn Kee and Mr Inderjit Singh and share in their request for the Government to consider the implementation of some of the key recommendations of the EISC on Government in business. The other speakers ahead of me had spoken persuasively on the merits of the recommendations and also commented on the need for Singapore to encourage the development of entrepreneurship and local enterprise and I need not elaborate again. The GEM report has accumulated evidence from their research over several years that documents the significant relationship between entrepreneurship and national economic adaptation and expansion. From the GEM report, it does appear that in less-developed and developing countries where the economy is less dependent on international trade, where there is less extensive social welfare system and the women are less empowered in the economy, necessity entrepreneurship dominates and it is positively related to the state of economic development. India ranks very high in this score. On the other hand, in the more developed countries, opportunity entrepreneurship dominates. The GEM report finds that the rate of opportunity entrepreneurship is higher where there is reduced national emphasis on manufacturing, less intrusive Government regulation, higher prevalence of informal investors and a significant respect for entrepreneurial activity. In this aspect, the USA is a case in point. As my colleague had mentioned earlier, Singapore has one of the lowest rates of entrepreneurial activities amongst the GEM 2001 countries. Many unique national features were earlier cited to explain the lower level of entrepreneurial activities in Singapore.”