Closing Speech by Minister for Trade and Industry (Energy and Industry) Dr Tan See Leng on motion on “An Economy Of The Future That Works For All”

Mr Speaker, Sir,

1. Let me first thank Mr Kenneth Tiong and Associate Professor Jamus Lim for bringing this Motion before the House, and all Members who have contributed to a thoughtful and constructive debate.

2. We have heard different views, diagnoses and prescriptions, but also substantial common ground.

a. We all want fulfilling careers and good outcomes for our fellow Singaporeans.

b. We all want entrepreneurs who are confident and willing to try, innovate and grow.

c. We all want more Singaporean enterprises that are globally successful.

d. And we want Singaporeans to be able to face the future with confidence, even as technology and global competition reshape our economy.

3. Mr Kenneth Tiong said that, if he could sum up this Motion in one question, it would be: “How does an ordinary Singaporean get a lasting share of our country’s success?”

4. It is a fair and important question. Let me offer my answer.

5. A Singaporean gets a lasting share of that success by meaningfully participating in our economy:

a. Through good jobs, sustained real wage growth, and finding fulfilment through work;

b. By acquiring and building skills and skillsets that remain relevant as technology evolves and changes;

c. And, after any setbacks, by taking up the opportunity to learn, and the support to recover and build again.

6. Some Singaporeans will be able to do much more, such as:

a. By starting or growing a successful business;

b. By turning an idea into a product or service;

c. Or by leading a regional or global team from Singapore.

7. Our people shape the economy, but they are in turn, shaped by the economy itself.

a. Singaporeans are not mere passive beneficiaries of economic growth.

b. They never have been that. We would never have gotten here if our people had been inert digits.

c. Our people have always been active participants, contributors, builders and owners of this island-nation.

8. This has always been at the heart of Singapore’s economic strategy.

a. The ultimate purpose of our economic strategy has never been growth for growth’s sake.

b. It is whether that growth pervades and percolates through the broader economy, and improves people’s lives through good jobs, rising incomes, social mobility, and the resilience to withstand setbacks.

9. By these measures, the Singapore model has delivered over successive generations. Our responsibility now is to ensure that it continues to deliver in a very different, changed world.

More pathways to success in a changed world

10. The Economic Strategy Review is guided by three imperatives: sharpen Singapore’s value proposition; enhance the agility and adaptability of our firms, workers and institutions; and build resilience alongside efficiency.

11. These are not abstract concepts. They are about widening practical pathways to success.

a. Can someone with an idea – whether a research breakthrough, a new service, an F&B concept or even a franchise opportunity – find the mentorship, the first customer, and capital to build a viable enterprise?

b. Can an SME adopt technology and scale?

c. Can a professional gain the international exposure needed to lead a global business?

d. Can a worker acquire relevant skills before being displaced; or find a credible path back into meaningful work after losing a job?

12. The ESR is about strengthening these pathways.

a. Not everyone will follow the same path.

b. Associate Professor Kenneth Goh made a useful distinction: fairness, rather than equality alone, should guide policy.

i. It means preventing disadvantage from becoming entrenched, while calibrating opportunities and support for different needs and different circumstances.

Lessons from my own entrepreneurial journey

13. Mr Speaker, allow me to speak and share about my own personal journey before I was elected as an MP in 2020.

14. I began my entrepreneurial journey when I was around 27. Together with a few partners, I started Healthway Medical Group with one clinic in Yishun. I should declare that I do not have any shares in Healthway, so I’m not making a pitch.

a. We were all young. We had limited capital and zero experience of starting a business. Nor did we have the wide range of support schemes which startups today can draw on.

b. There was no certainty that our venture would succeed.

c. We were doctors, but our medical training did not include courses on how to build a business organisation.

d. We had to learn on the go, on operations, finance, people management and quality control. In time we had to learn how to build an institution that could endure beyond ourselves.

15. Some of the earliest companies that gave us a chance were MNCs like; Sony, Aiwa, Shimano, Asahi TV glass, HP and P&G. In fact, a few of them no longer exist in Singapore.

a. They were large at that time; they were established global companies.

b. We were a young Singapore startup enterprise who found a relatively white space in the HDB and industrial estates, when the concept of a corporate group practice providing healthcare in those areas was still nascent.

16. The trust of these MNCs gave us that foothold and enabled us to build a track record.

a. We had to constantly measure up and meet their demanding standards.

b. But once we showed that we could deliver, it became easier to win the confidence of the next customer.

17. Therefore, I have never regarded global enterprises and local enterprises as opposites.

a. In my own experience, established global companies helped a home-grown Singapore enterprise to start, establish credibility, and grow.

b. They did not crowd us out. They gave us an opportunity to grow and compete.

c. And I know this is the experience of many other SMEs in Singapore.

18. Opportunity alone was not enough.

a. We still had to deliver – improve our service, look after our people, manage our costs, and we earn our customers’ trust, again and again.

b. Over time, the organisation grew, transformed and diversified, achieved sustainable scale, and all of us successfully divested.

19. Later, I built, transformed and scaled organisations at a much larger and more international level.

a. Starting a clinic did not equip me automatically to manage a network, let alone lead a healthcare group of tertiary hospitals with global operations, with more than 55,000 staff operating across Europe and Asia.

b. I had to keep learning – moving beyond medicine into management, finance, technology and organisational leadership, and working with people, and, most importantly, mentors who knew far more than what I knew in so many areas outside my own training. I graduated from business school only after turning 40, and hence, I am a believer of life-long learning. Even now, I am still learning from all of you here.

20. I did not do it alone. Healthway was built with a few founders who shared the same vision and took risks alongside me, and staff who committed themselves to the organisation, customers who trusted us, and partners who helped us develop.

21. That experience also taught me what Government can, and what Government cannot do.

a. Mr Mark Lee put it so aptly: Government must build the runway, but entrepreneurs and workers must still run on it and take off.

22. Government should maintain sound institutions, open markets and clear rules. It should reduce avoidable friction, reduce volatilities in policies, connect businesses to knowledge and markets, and share selected risks where there is a wider economic benefit. And I was taught by a very famous accountant during that period. He said “In Singapore, we have knowledge; know-how is better. But when you go overseas, know-who is the best.”

23. But Government cannot find the customers. It cannot build the business team, it cannot make commercial decisions, or persevere on the entrepreneur’s behalf.

24. Government support should be a springboard for enterprise. It cannot be the business model.

25. But that does not mean leaving entrepreneurs and SMEs to fend for themselves.

a. As Senior Minister of State Low Yen Ling set out comprehensively; we help enterprises manage immediate pressures, adopt technology, strengthen operations and venture overseas.

b. These schemes are aimed at helping viable firms become more productive, more competitive and more resilient.

c. To be clear, not every idea or start-up will bear fruit. However, this does not mean that these assistance schemes are futile, or that the entrepreneur has failed.

d. Every closure can instead mean avoiding years of opportunity costs. The efforts, capital and time saved can then be rechannelled to other more promising ideas or opportunities.

e. If you talk to enough successful entrepreneurs, where they eventually arrive – the final destination – often differs from where they intended to go at the start. But that is the resilience, the tenacity and the perseverance of an entrepreneur.

f. Some of you are old enough, alongside with me, to remember the series ‘Rocky’. ‘Rocky’ is like an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is not someone who can just throw the punches, but it is the person who can take the punches, get back up, and keep moving forward. That is how entrepreneurs win.

Helping entrepreneurs cross the difficult gaps

26. Mr Speaker, Singapore has built a credible base for entrepreneurship.

a. Singapore ranked fourth in StartupBlink’s Global Startup Ecosystem Index 2025, this has jumped up from 16th in 2020.

b. Today, we have more than 4,500 technology startups, with around 220 incubators, accelerators and venture builders, and more than 500 venture-capital firms.

27. Our ambition cannot be measured only by how many companies are formed. It has to be measured by how many good ideas become viable businesses, how many viable businesses can scale, and how many anchor capabilities, intellectual property and good jobs in Singapore.

28. Entrepreneurs must cross several difficult gaps.

a. This list is not exhaustive, but, generally, the entire journey involves five difficult crossings – from aspiration to a first venture; from an idea or research breakthrough to innovation and enterprise; from a product or service to a first customer; from early traction to sustained scale; and from a strong base in Singapore to markets around the world.

b. Government policy can undoubtedly help at each stage – but it cannot make the journey risk-free.

c. Let me explain.

From aspiration to a first venture

29. The first gap is between aspiration and a first venture.

30. To address this, Startup SG Founder provides startup capital to first-time entrepreneurs, alongside mentorship and communities that help founders learn, build the confidence, and navigate different stages of growth.

31. Dedicated spaces such as LaunchPad @ one-north give founders a place to collaborate, learn from one another, meet investors, and develop the know-who, the networks and develop their ideas.

32. The aim is not to make everyone an entrepreneur. It is to give serious ideas a fair chance to be tested.

From research to innovation and enterprise

33. The second gap is between research and something that creates value in the market.

34. Many of tomorrow’s founders may begin not in a clinic, shop or office, but in a laboratory. Their initial asset may be a scientific discovery, a medical device, a new material, software or intellectual property developed through years of research.

35. As a medical doctor, I know that a good scientific result is not yet a treatment. A promising prototype is not yet a product. And a good product is not yet a sustainable company.

36. Research creates knowledge. Innovation applies it. Entrepreneurship takes it to market. Scale allows it to create wider economic and social impact.

37. Our long-term investments in the RIE space – Research, Innovation and Enterprise – are producing results.

a. Government spending has catalysed greater private sector R&D.

b. Industry R&D employment has grown to over 30,000, with locals filling more than 70 per cent of these roles.

c. Over the past five years, technologies from A*STAR and our universities have spun off more than 300 companies.

38. But creating knowledge is only part of the journey. The harder task is how do we translate research into products, businesses and economic value.

39. We are strengthening this translation in several ways.

40. Through the Technology for Enterprise Capability Upgrading, or T-Up, programme, A*STAR research scientists and engineers can be seconded to support local SMEs’ R&D projects for up to two years.

41. We have also established translational platforms that bridge research and commercialisation.

a. Through platforms such as MedTech Catapult and our semiconductor innovation facilities, companies can prototype, test and commercialise new technologies without bearing the full cost themselves.

42. Translation also takes place when our public researchers work with leading global companies and local suppliers.

43. The Smart Manufacturing Joint Lab, which is established by Rolls-Royce, Singapore Aero Engine Services (SAESL) and A*STAR, is one example.

a. The collaboration has developed new technologies that improve fan blade manufacturing and aircraft engine maintenance, repair and overhaul.

b. It has also enabled local SMEs to qualify as suppliers to global aerospace companies.

44. This is how we anchor investments deeply in Singapore.

a. We do not simply host production.

b. We connect global companies with our researchers and local suppliers.

c. That is how knowledge is translated into industrial capability, and local companies gain pathways into global supply chains.

45. Under RIE2030, we have (raised) the ambition, and we will strengthen these connections even further.

a. We will commit S$37 billion over the next five years, supporting both fundamental research and stronger translation in areas such as semiconductors, transport, healthy longevity and decarbonisation.

b. Our objective is to ensure that more research becomes useful technology; more useful technology becomes commercial capability; and more capability becomes enterprises, jobs, and value anchored in Singapore.

46. Not every programme will produce a breakthrough.

a. Earlier on, Dr Neo Kok Beng and Associate Professor (Kenneth) Goh both argued that innovation and entrepreneurship require room for risk-taking and responsible failure.

b. If we fund only ideas whose outcomes are more certain, we will miss many of the breakthroughs that could define the future.

47. This risk-taking, therefore, must be and will be matched by discipline.

a. Government must invest in areas where Singapore can build meaningful advantages. We call this our right to play.

b. Researchers must remain rigorous.

c. Our investors must exercise commercial judgement.

d. And entrepreneurs must solve problems that customers are willing to pay for.

48. Even the best technology cannot be scaled unless someone is prepared to use it and pay for it.

49. That brings me to the third gap – how do we bring the product to the first customer.

From product to first customer

50. Mr Ng Shi Xuan highlighted why a first customer matters.

a. It allows a company to test and demonstrate its solution, build a track record, and show that it can meet demanding standards, making it easier to win the next customer or investor.

b. That was true when I started at Healthway. And it remains true for startups today.

51. This is why EDB and Enterprise Singapore work to connect MNCs with local startups and SMEs through the Partnerships for Capability Transformation, or PACT. I won’t go through that because SMS Low already expounded on it earlier on.

52. Our public sector can also be an early customer.

a. Under the Innovative Procurement Partnership, startups can participate in tenders and propose innovative solutions for pilot testing.

b. If a trial is successful, agencies have the option to continue working with the same firm to scale and deploy the solution.

53. This is the wider ecosystem we are trying to build: established companies, startups, research institutions and the public sector all coming and working together; firms gaining the chance to prove themselves; and good solutions moving more quickly from pilot to scale.

From early traction to sustained scale

54. The fourth gap is from early traction to sustained scale. This is where many promising firms struggle.

55. Different stages require different forms of capital: modest funding for a first venture; patient equity for deep-tech development; venture debt or private credit for growth; and public markets and credible exits for mature companies.

56. So, the entire financing journey, as I have just shared, we have therefore strengthened all that support.

a. We have topped up a S$1 billion to Startup SG Equity, and this will catalyse private investment in early- and growth-stage deep-tech companies. The ESR also recommends developing venture debt and private credit alongside venture capital.

b. For mature companies, the Equities Market Review and a second S$1.5 billion tranche of the Anchor Fund will support stronger public markets and higher-quality listings.

c. All these successful exits, they recycle capital, expertise and confidence, and trust, reputation, into new ventures.

57. But finance alone does not build great companies. Public capital should crowd in commercial capital and expertise, not replace them. The risk must still be properly understood and borne. Governments cannot and do not create champions just by simply writing larger cheques.

58. Firms also need experienced leadership, specialised talent, sound governance and the ability to manage a much larger business.

a. Enterprise Singapore’s Scale-Up programme addresses this wider capability challenge.

b. 80 companies in its first seven cohorts generated a combined S$2.5 billion in additional revenue within three years; S$1 billion came from overseas expansion.

c. This is the journey we must strengthen: from the courage to start, to the capability to innovate; from a first customer, to the financing and leadership needed to scale; and eventually to markets much larger than our own.

From a strong base to global scale

59. Healthy domestic demand matters.

a. It reflects confidence, supports domestic-facing businesses, and gives firms a first market to test products and build brands.

b. My second foray after divesting Healthway was joining and building the hospital business under Parkway. Parkway Holdings itself began in Singapore as a Singapore company. It owned, at that time, the three hospitals named - Gleneagles, Mount Elizabeth Hospital and East Shore Hospital, now renamed Parkway East Hospital.

60. But Singapore’s domestic market alone cannot provide the scale required for ambitious firms or advanced industries. It is, a good platform to build credibility, to build trust, to build reputation, to establish a viable proof of concept, build a trusted brand and operating model, then leveraging it as a platform, a springboard to expand into the region and globally.

61. Internationalisation is hard, and I believe it is getting even harder.

a. A company entering another market must understand different customers, regulations, cultures and partners.

b. A more fragmented world that we live in today makes diversification and good in-market support even more important.

c. As Mr Azhar Othman said, Singapore must remain a bridge of trade, and not become a barrier to it.

d. The answer is not to withdraw into our domestic market. It is to do more to help Singapore firms enter even more markets, find credible partners and compete more effectively.

62. So, we are strengthening these practical pathways.

a. Since its inception, the Global Innovation Alliance has supported close to 1,200 companies to enter new markets and co-innovate with overseas partners.

b. More than 240 startups have achieved commercial or funding traction abroad.

c. And we will, under GIA2030, launch programmes to help firms test product-market fit and find even earlier customers.

63. Not every Singapore business can or must become global. A neighbourhood service provider or heritage restaurant that serves the local community plays an equally important role in our society. They create jobs; they directly meet the needs of Singapore and Singaporeans.

64. But for companies that aspire to become regional or global champions, they cannot be confined by the size of our home market. We want to help them grow abroad, but we want the headquarters, the strategic decisions, the R&D, the brains of the company, the intellectual property, the finance, the product management, the regional leadership and the good jobs to be anchored here, and that has always been what we work towards.

65. So, to put simply, we help firms go abroad to grow. But as they grow, the stronger capabilities and opportunities will continue to be anchored firmly in Singapore.

A lasting share through good jobs and lifelong capability

66. Mr Speaker, most Singaporeans will experience the economy most directly through work.

67. Not everyone will start a company. That does not make their stake in Singapore’s success any less direct or lasting.

68. A good job provides income today. But it should also enable a person to build skills, experience and confidence over time.

69. I have considered this consistently, as a doctor, entrepreneur, employer and when I was Manpower Minister., and of course, today, I consider it even more.

70. As an employer, I learnt that an organisation can grow sustainably only if its people can grow alongside with it. A company that introduces technology without redesigning work and without developing its people will create anxiety and limit its own capabilities. I have come to realise very early on that at the end of the day, we are all in the business of developing, growing and maximising our human capital.

71. As Manpower Minister, I met workers for whom disruption was not abstract. A job loss raises fears about income; whether years of experience still count; whether one is too old to begin again; and whether the next job will use one’s experience and abilities.

72. These concerns are real. We should not answer them merely by pointing to aggregate statistics or the number of courses available.

a. A course completed is not yet a successful transition.

b. Dr Wan Rizal put it well: effort without direction creates frustration; effort with direction builds confidence.

c. Associate Professor Terence Ho added that the gains from training and reskilling will not be fully realised until workers have opportunities to apply what they learn at work.

73. So support will therefore have to begin earlier and connect to real opportunities.

a. The ESR proposes “career bridges” linking workers in at-risk roles to more resilient occupations through training, guidance and job matching.

b. The new Skills and Workforce Development Agency (SWDA) will integrate these services.

74. Employers must treat workforce transformation – redesigning jobs, training workers, and translating productivity gains into better work and progression.

75. Workers, on the other hand, must take ownership too. The government can make training accessible, employers can create opportunities and unions can support workers. But no institution can learn on a person’s behalf.

76. I had to keep learning as the organisations I led became more and more complex. Singaporeans will increasingly have to do the same – deepening expertise, moving into hybrid roles that combine AI with sector knowledge, making mid-career transitions or becoming entrepreneurs later in life.

a. Entrepreneurship is not confined to the young. Mr Morris Chang founded TSMC, one of the world’s most successful semiconductor company, at 55 after 25 years at Texas Instruments, showing how accumulated knowledge and judgment can underpin reinvention later in life.

77. Our careers will become less linear. But they need not become less meaningful.

78. Financial support during unemployment or retraining gives individuals and families breathing space. But it must be connected to a pathway forward.

a. Our objective must be to help each person return confidently to sustainable work – not merely to make unemployment more bearable.

b. We will not be able to promise that every job will remain unchanged, I don’t think we can, – or should we try to do that – hold back technology merely to freeze roles in place.

c. But what we will do, what we promise to do, and what we will endeavour and give our best efforts to do is to help every single worker prepare earlier, acquire relevant capabilities, find credible next steps, and navigate change without being left alone, because every worker matters.

79. That is how a worker obtains a lasting share of economic success. Not only through compensation after disruption, but through the enduring ability to contribute, earn, adapt and progress.

The full combination Singapore needs

80. Mr Speaker, let me return to Mr (Kenneth) Tiong’s question.

81. How does an ordinary Singaporean get a lasting share of our country’s success?

a. When a young Singaporean turns a scientific idea into a company.

b. When a local firm wins its first major customer and enters a global value chain.

c. When a technician progresses into a higher-skilled role.

d. When a displaced PMET can build on years of experience rather than start from zero.

e. When a Singapore enterprise grows abroad while strengthening its R&D and leadership functions here.

f. When a Singaporean in a global company develops the capabilities and networks to lead across the region – or later starts a venture of his or her own.

g. And when someone who suffers a business or career setback can recover, learn, try and succeed again.

82. That is a lasting share. It is not only a transfer received after value has been created. It is the opportunity to take part in crafting, creating, shaping and sustaining the value. And that’s how Singaporeans can win, that is how winning is done.

83. The amended Motion, Mr Speaker, captures the full combination that Singapore needs:

a. An equal and inclusive economy with opportunities for entrepreneurs, households, businesses and workers, and ideas and innovation to flourish; and

b. An economy powered by dynamic local companies and global enterprises, healthy domestic and external demand, and Singaporeans and Singaporean capital venturing abroad.

84. All of these are mutually reinforcing parts of one united economic strategy.

a. There is a famous Chinese saying: 天时地利人和 – right timing and opportunity, right place and right people; these are the elements often cited as requirements for success.

b. The government will play its part: maintaining a trusted, open economy; investing for the long term; addressing genuine capability, financing and market-access gaps; and helping workers prepare for change. This is地利。

c. Others have to play their parts. Businesses must transform and invest in people; workers keep learning; investors take informed risks; and entrepreneurs build, compete, persevere and accept responsibility. That is 人和。

85. We cannot guarantee that every venture will succeed, every job will remain the same, or every transition will be painless.

a. That in itself is 天时。Because we cannot provide the timing and the opportunity, that is the most crucial part that the entrepreneur and business founder would have to decide.

86. But what we can do is to ensure that Singapore remains a place where every person has a fair chance to try, a pathway to progress, and support to recover from setbacks.

87. Singapore’s success has never been guaranteed. Every generation had to build it – by staying open, learning faster, taking calculated risks, and pulling together when circumstances became difficult.

88. The next chapter will demand that same spirit.

a. The economy of the future will not be powered by one type of company, one source of demand or one Government programme.

b. It will be powered by all fellow Singaporeans who can build, lead, own, innovate, adapt and grow.

89. That is how we secure the best future for Singapore. And that is how we will ensure that Singapore’s future economy truly works for all Singaporeans.

90. With that, Mr Speaker, I support the amendments and the Motion as amended.

91. Thank you.