MTI Commits to Helping Businesses and Workers Adapt to Post-COVID-19 World

The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) stands ready to take Singapore forward in a changing world, after the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted businesses and livelihoods, said Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing on 26 August 2020.

“We will reopen our economy safely and sustainably, help businesses and workers adjust, and establish a conducive environment for businesses and workers to grow, to realise our vision of a vibrant economy with opportunities for all,” said Mr Chan.

He laid out the initiatives in MTI’s addendum to President Halimah Yacob’s address at the opening of Parliament on 24 August 2020.

Reopening Economy Safely and Sustainably

The first step forward in navigating the new world will be to open Singapore’s economy safely and sustainably. Economic growth will be difficult to generate without doing this, said Mr Chan.

He explained: “We will enable businesses to resume progressively and manage the risks with tight, safe management measures for higher-risk activities.

“We will expand our testing and contact tracing capacity significantly, so that we can isolate clusters swiftly and effectively, to allow the rest of the economy to continue operating.”

To help businesses and workers tap on international opportunities and create good jobs, MTI will continue to facilitate safe long-term and short-term business travel.

Preserving Core Capabilities

Sectors like aerospace, and marine and offshore are facing a fall in demand but are expected to recover.

The sectors’ core capabilities built over the years will be preserved, to allow them to remain competitive and recover quickly from the crisis.

“We will channel support to help companies in these sectors generate fresh revenue and become more cost-efficient,” said Mr Chan.

On the other hand, sectors like biomedical sciences, electronics, financial services, and the digital economy will see growth opportunities.

MTI will help companies in these sectors to invest and expand, which will generate business for other companies and ultimately create good jobs for Singaporeans.

Mr Chan also acknowledged that there are sectors that have permanently changed. These include mass-market tourism and social entertainment.

“We will help them reinvent themselves and pivot to new markets and products. Where tough decisions are taken by businesses to cease operations or retrench workers, we will partner the Ministry of Manpower and our tripartite partners to help workers develop new skills and find new jobs, and to preserve the Singapore core of skills and capabilities,” he said.

Establishing the Right Conditions

The business environment will continue to be strengthened to enable businesses and workers to seize opportunities, added Mr Chan.

Some of MTI’s plans to do this include:

• Strengthening links with the world for markets, supplies, technology, and talent to preserve Singapore’s ability to create jobs.
• Working with like-minded partners internationally to reaffirm the shared commitment to keeping trade routes open and ensuring the continued flow of goods.
• Breaking new ground with Digital Economy Agreements to facilitate trade in the digital economy, providing ease and certainty to companies, and better enabling technology companies to manage their global platforms and digital services out of Singapore.
• Developing multi-modal transport solutions to offer new competitive advantages to traders and logistics players using Singapore as a hub. This improved connectivity will also enable companies to diversify their supply sources and reach more customers more readily, increasing their resilience against the risk of supply chain disruption.

MTI also aims to strengthen its existing toolkit to support businesses.

“We are confronting this crisis from a position of strength. Our hard-won reputation for transparency, the rule of law, skilled workforce, and world-class connectivity are significant advantages, and will enable us to adapt to the challenging environment,” said Mr Chan.