Singapore assists enterprises in tapping AEC opportunities

Hanoi (VNA) – The Singaporean government has been working hard to draw up policies and introduce measures to help its businesses to tap opportunities offered by the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), expected to be formed on December 31.

ASEAN is predicted to maintain an average growth of 5 percent from now to 2018, and become the fourth largest market in 2030 after the European Union, the United States and China.

With the advantage of capital and investment experience, Singapore will help its enterprises to move their low-value production activities to neighbouring countries where labour costs are cheaper.

For example, the country’s garment producers can shift their production lines to Vietnam or Thailand or those specialising in electronic products may turn to Malaysia.

The trend is predicted to increase slightly in the next two years and will increase strongly after 2018.

In order to help enterprises to seize opportunities from the AEC, the Singaporean government and trade associations and chambers have applied many measures and programmes to help small- and medium- enterprises (SMEs) to invest overseas.

Besides training a competent workforce, Singapore is also encouraging SMEs to take advantage of technology and innovation to cement competitiveness and boost growth with maximum assistance from government agencies such as the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and Spring.

Enterprises that want to expand operations aboard will get special assistance from the International Enterprise (IE) Singapore and the government.

The Singapore Business Federation holds workshops every two months with the participation of representatives from Spring, IE Singapore and the Ministry of Trade and Industry to explain the AEC’s important fields to SME leaders.

Singapore has also launched an initiative called SkillsFuture to help businesses learn the necessary skills to train a highly productive and expert workforce.-VNA