Debated in Parliament on 25 Feb 2013.
Mr Seah Kian Peng asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (a) how does Singapore fare in international benchmarks for business and political risks; and (b) whether this has changed over the past five years.
Mdm Speaker, the Business Environment Risk Intelligence (BERI) produces one of the most established reports benchmarking business and political risk, known as the Business Risk Service report (BRS).
Singapore has been ranked first among 50 countries benchmarked in the BRS composite index from 2010 to 2012, reflecting the soundness of our operating environment for businesses, political risk profile and foreign exchange and external accounts' positions. For the preceding two years from 2008 to 2009, Singapore was a close second to Switzerland.
As a component of the overall index, the BRS produces a separate index for political risk. Singapore has been ranked first for this component, which examines both internal and external sources of political risk, for all five years up to 2012.
Mdm Speaker, some supplementary questions for the Minister. Given the recent tightening in manpower policies, the slowdown in our economic growth projections, and the recent developments on the political front, I would just like to ask the Minister what is his assessment of these benchmarks going forward and, in particular, the implications for Singapore and Singaporeans.
Mdm Speaker, as Members can see, the benchmarks tend to be backward looking because they assess the situation up to now. What we need are more leading indicators or more forward-looking indices. We do not have these in a systematic way. So, what EDB and many the MTI agencies do is to collect anecdotal evidence from our discussions with companies,
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Embassies, business groups, and with business chambers and federations. They also track media reports and some analysts' assessments. These give us cause for concern because while we are having these internal debates, the discussions going on may give a wrong impression or misimpression. So, we are very watchful and continue to monitor this very carefully.
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