Support for Local Culinary Professionals to Establish F&B Businesses in Plans to Promote Singapore as Culinary Capital

Ms See Jinli Jean asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry in respect of the Ministry's marketing plans to promote Singapore as a culinary capital, whether the Ministry will consider strengthening the uniquely Singaporean element via support schemes for marketing and rental that will encourage more local culinary professionals to establish their food and beverage businesses in Government-led space rejuvenation projects.

The Government collaborates with partners to provide platforms for local food and beverage businesses to showcase their brands. Enterprise Singapore supports annual food-related meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) shows in Singapore, namely the Food and Hotel Asia, Restaurant Asia and SIGEP Asia. These shows provide opportunities for our local food companies to network and profile their brands to an international audience. The Singapore Tourism Board also organises the Singapore Food Festival annually to celebrate our local food, culture and culinary talents.

In addition, Enterprise Singapore has programmes to support companies, including local food companies, to grow, transform and internationalise. The FoodVentures is a structured end-to-end internationalisation programme for progressive food services companies. Companies can also tap into the Market Readiness Assistance Grant to defray the costs of overseas market promotion, business development and set-up; and the Productivity Solutions Grant and Enterprise Development Grant to grow and transform their businesses.

We generally do not provide support schemes for rental costs to avoid distorting market prices.