Minister of State Teo Ser Luck’s reply to Parliamentary Question on SME Workgroup

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Mr R Dhinakaran: To ask the Minister for Trade and Industry what is the progress of the SME Workgroup and how many businesses has the Workgroup engaged.

Mr R Dhinakaran: To ask the Minister for Trade and Industry (a) whether the SME Workgroup has any preliminary findings to share; and (b) if so, when and how will its findings be released.

Oral Reply by Mr Teo Ser Luck, Minister of State for Trade and Industry

1. Since its launch in September last year, the SME Workgroup has been engaging the SME community, and has reviewed the feedback from SMEs on government policies and processes.

2. To date, the Advisors in the Workgroup have conducted 17 outreach and engagement sessions,  reaching out to almost 700 attendees from SMEs across a range of industries. When taken with the other outreach efforts carried out with partner agencies such as SPRING and the outreach done by the various SME Centres, more than 5,600 SMEs have been engaged through over 120 sessions since the launch of the SME Workgroup.

3. The SMEs had given feedback regarding rising costs, particularly from manpower, land and space constraints. In their engagement sessions, Advisors have encouraged companies to restructure and improve productivity to address these challenges.  We have found that many SMEs are unaware of the various ways in which the Government can assist them in upgrading their businesses. The engagement sessions, with representatives from the relevant agencies, such as the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), SPRING and the Workforce Development Agency (WDA), have been helpful in increasing awareness among SMEs about available Government assistance. More SMEs are now aware that they can approach any of the SME Centres, which can provide guidance on which government schemes are relevant for their needs.

4. The Workgroup also recognised that our SMEs need to focus on growth  in order to succeed. There are many Government schemes which our companies can tap on for growth, innovation and internationalisation. We will continue to monitor the needs of our companies, and study how government schemes can be enhanced to support our companies to tap growth opportunities. The SME Workgroup is an ongoing, long-term effort and it will continue to look at SME issues.