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New initiatives to support manufacturing companies, trade ecosystem and startups in Singapore

During the Committee of Supply (COS) debate in the Singapore parliament on 2 March, Dr Koh Poh Koon, Senior Minister of State (SMS) for Trade and Industry, talked about new initiatives to help local manufacturing companies adopt advanced technology, strengthen the trade ecosystem and support startups.

Helping companies transit to advanced manufacturing

He said that the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) is going to extend the reach of its Operation and Technology Roadmapping (OTR) service.

The OTR is a part of A*STAR’s Growing Enterprises through Technology Upgrade (GET-Up) initiative which aims to boost the innovation capacity and global competitiveness of local technology-intensive enterprises.

Through OTR, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) can get A*STAR’s guidance to customise a long-term growth strategy for realising new product or service offerings. The OTR also provides SMEs with business strategies to assess consumer demand, challenges, and potential markets. As of November 2017, A*STAR has engaged over 300 companies through OTR.

Dr Koh said that A*STAR will work through lead Government agencies and TACs (Trade Associations & Chambers) to launch consortium-style OTRs, in order to extend the reach of OTR.

This will bring together companies within the same sub-sector to chart out technology roadmaps for shared problem statements. Participating companies can then build on these shared roadmaps as base templates to further customise solutions for their needs. This arrangement allows more companies to leverage shared resources such as industry experts and technology developers.

Dr Koh also provided an update on Tech Depot which was launched in April last year to improve local enterprises’ access to technology and digital solutions. Tech Depot, which was jointly created by A*STAR, IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority), and SPRING, is an online repository of plug-and-play productivity solutions available on SPRING’s SME Portal. The solutions cover areas such as inventory and asset tracking, and supply chain management. Till date, 45 solutions have been made available and more than 1,000 companies have adopted solutions from Tech Depot.

Dr Koh also said that companies which are unsure about how and where to begin their transformation journey can use EDB’s Singapore Smart Industry Readiness Index (SSIRI) launched in December last year. Companies can use this tool to self-diagnose the future-readiness of their organisational processes, technology usage, and workforce skills. It is designed to be used by companies of all sizes in all sectors, to determine how they may implement “smart” manufacturing operations. He encouraged companies to sign up for the SSIRI workshops conducted by EDB to find out more.

Strengthening trade ecosystem

In September 2017, the Singapore Logistics Association (SLA) and Global eTrade Services (GeTS) launched ‘hive’, a regional B2B trade facilitation platform. ‘hive’ supports companies in meeting cross-border trade compliance requirements for over 50 customs authorities in ASEAN and around the world. This allows companies to enjoy greater process efficiencies and seamless clearance, since ‘hive’ will be linked to Singapore Customs.

During the first five months, over 2,300 companies have joined the platform, and close to 4,000 transactions have been completed.

To further strengthen Singapore’s trade ecosystem, the Government will establish the Trade Infrastructure Development Fund (TIDF) this year.

The TIDF will be offered as a grant to support companies which are looking to develop B2B e-marketplaces and innovative trade solutions. The TIDF will also support initiatives to create a wider spectrum of financial value-added service offerings. These efforts are expected to help Singapore’s Wholesale Trade companies to scale up, and become more productive and innovative.

Supporting Singapore’s startup ecosystem

SPRING will also be launching the Startup SG (SSG) Network later this year. The SSG Network will be a one-stop database of information, as well as an e-community of startups and ecosystem players. This will support networking and facilitate business matching for startups.

This will build on last year’s initiatives, such as the launch of ‘Startup SG’  as a single brand identity in March 2017, enhancing the EntrePass scheme’s entry and renewal criteria in August 2017 and raising the cap and proportion of the Government’s co-investment funding share under the Startup SG Equity.

With the establishment of Enterprise Singapore (ESG) in April this year through the merger of IE Singapore and SPRING, startups will be able to leverage ESG’s international network of offices and in-market partners to scale up and expand into new overseas markets.

ESG will advise startups on capability development and internationalisation, while providing them with integrated support through the schemes that were previously under SPRING and IE Singapore.

PARTNER

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CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

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SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

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HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

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IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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