The diverse nature, activities and performances of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are likely to translate to varying responses to legislation, compliance and other administrative requirements. SMEs have a crucial importance for the future development, but very often face enormous bureaucratic hurdles and obstacles. Singapore is not unique in this regard; globally, various organisations at the national and regional levels have been examining ways to reduce bureaucratic burdens on businesses. In Singapore, there have been numerous calls to reduce legislation/compliance relating to business competitiveness matters. In his statement on the SME Development Survey 2014, Singapore Business Federation Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr Ho Meng Kit commented: “Government charges increasingly have impacted SMEs’ cost competitiveness…Government charges are more controllable costs and they should be reviewed so that they do not add to the cost burdens of our small businesses.”
Opportunities for government procurement and projects are another area where SMEs could leverage for business expansion and jobs creation. In the United Kingdom, the government has reviewed the process of public tender contracts, ensuring access through various mechanisms for SMEs to bid for public contacts as well as set aside a quota of all government contracts specifically for bidding by SMEs. In Singapore, during the Ministry of Finance’s 2014 Committee of Supply debate, Senior Minister of State for Finance Mrs Josephine Teo noted that SMEs have good access to government procurement opportunities but added that “there is scope to help small- and medium-sized enterprises take on more or larger government projects.”
In this regard, the aim of this Closed-Door Discussion (CDD) is to identity the areas that pose the greatest bureaucratic hurdles to SMEs, generate ideas on how to overcome those hurdles, and to examine the ways to enable more SMEs to participate in government procurements and projects. For SMEs that have benefited from government contracts and assistance programmes in expanding their respective businesses, their business experiences could be shared for the benefit of future policy design to expand economic growth and support quality job creation in the context of SME development.
The CDD will kick off with presentations by Mr Samuel Sng, Research Manager of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises; Mr Paul Lim, CEO of Soverus Group Pte Ltd; Mr Ang Yuit, Managing Director of The Adventus Consultants Pte Ltd; and Mr Charles Quek, CEO of HSL Constructor Pte Ltd, who will share their business experience in the above areas. Mr Manu Bhaskaran, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at IPS and Partner and Member of the Board of Centennial Group Inc, a policy advisory group based in Washington, DC, will moderate the session.
Please click here to view the programme.
The series of CDDs focusing on issues confronting the SME sector in Singapore includes: