Govt can set table, but it’s up to businesses to succeed: Iswaran

SINGAPORE — The Government can be an enabler for businesses, but it cannot make decisions for businesses, or pick winners, said Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry) S Iswaran in Parliament yesterday, as he reiterated the measures in place to support businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises.

Stressing that it is up to businesses to succeed, he said there is a plethora of support available for SMEs. Those who are prepared to go further will receive more support, said the minister, as he addressed concerns that not enough was being done to support businesses in this challenging economic climate.

While describing the Government as “an important enabler”, Mr Iswaran said: “We are in an inherently more uncertain environment, therefore the emphasis (is) on the broad range of capabilities I’ve outlined, and this broad scheme of measures that we have, are going to be the key platform to raise industries as a whole.”

“Sure, the companies that are prepared to go further and move faster, will receive more support, but that does not mean we are picking winners. The winners are picking themselves, and adapting to our schemes.”

Mr Iswaran was addressing a point in the speech made by Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Leon Perera, who felt that Budget 2017 was a “missed opportunity” in building up local enterprises as an engine of value creation alongside multi-national corporations.

Mr Perera had also suggested making support to companies more selective: Giving higher funding to companies with a track record of results, and scaling down that support if results are not delivered, or if it does not benefit Singapore.

Mr Iswaran, saying he was “surprised” by Mr Perera’s description of the Budget as a missed opportunity, noted that he had given a “complete, not exhaustive” list of various initiatives designed to help SMEs.

After the Budget was announced last week, the Singapore Business Federation had also said it was “disappointed” with Budget 2017’s short-term measures, mainly what they felt was inadequate short-term support to lower business and compliance costs.

However, Mr Iswaran yesterday outlined what he called “a plethora of support” available for SMEs. For instance, there is suite of loan programmes that will collectively catalyse S$5 billion in loans up to 2020.

To help businesses go global, S$400 million has been set aside in grants. In this Budget, the S$600 million International Partnership Fund has been set up to co-invest with firms to help them expand overseas, he said.

Mr Perera also suggested that people might not become entrepreneurs if they feel that the environment is not suitable. “There are many schemes ... but some of these schemes have limits. Some of these schemes might be phased out in the future. That may affect the willingness of people to become entrepreneurs,” said Mr Perera, adding that he wanted to know what the Government’s response to this “impediment to entrepreneurship” might be.

To that, Mr Iswaran said that anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur because of the Government’s schemes and support would have been on the “wrong starting point”.

“I think the starting point for any entrepreneur is really deciding that he or she has a strong value proposition, a passion to grow something, and then they go out there and make it happen,” said the minister. TAN WEIZHEN