Helping Local Businesses Tap on ASEAN Economic Community

Mr Thomas Chua Kee Seng asked the Minister for Trade and Industry whether the Ministry plans to look into measures to help our SMEs and other local enterprises tap on the business opportunities arising from the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community by the end of 2015.

Mdm Speaker, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) aims to create a single market and production base, through simplified customs procedures and harmonisation of standards and a more efficient and predictable trading environment in ASEAN. This will translate into benefits, such as a freer flow of goods, services and investments, resulting in shorter time-to-market for businesses.

AEC will help unlock the growth potential for our SMEs and local enterprises, by creating a larger economic hinterland that can help our businesses overcome the limitations of our small domestic market and resource constraints. IE Singapore and SPRING have a comprehensive and broad-based suite of assistance schemes that will help companies develop capabilities and internationalise. For example, IE's Market Readiness Assistance (MRA) facilitates internationalisation by providing companies with ready market information and platforms for learning. Companies can also receive support for legal, tax and business consultancy services to aid their efforts. IE's Global Company Partnership (GCP) supports SMEs with more developed internationalisation plans by providing customised support for capability building, manpower development, market access and financing.

In the lead up to AEC 2015, the Government will step up efforts to promote broader awareness of how SMEs can benefit from the AEC. The Singapore Business Federation (SBF), with support from MTI, has also recently organised the AEC 2015 SME Business Forum, which provided a platform for Singapore SMEs to learn about the opportunities arising from the AEC. SMEs that would like to seek advice on how they should prepare themselves for the

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AEC can also do so at any of the many SME Centres islandwide.

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. As we know, the AEC is progressing at different paces across different ASEAN countries as well as across different sectors. Can the Minister of State share with us what are MTI's plans in terms of whether there are priority sectors that it plans to push our SMEs towards or to promote for SMEs and also specific countries which are further upstream or further developed on the AEC path?

We have not, so far, tried to prioritise any sector. It is important that we help support as many SMEs as we can as they branch out or expand because Singapore has its land as well as resource constraints. We are planning for many different trips. In fact, I will be leading a business delegation within this month to Indonesia and also trips to the other cities and countries are being planned across ASEAN. ASEAN, as a hinterland, is how Singapore businesses can also use in order to survive and even to strengthen their own business operations throughout.

There are things they cannot do in Singapore that our hinterland or our neighbours in the ASEAN Community can help us with. That is exactly where we are coming from, and we hope that AEC 2015 will help give us that advantage.