Singapore just released a massive report on its future economy. Here’s a summary.

Photo credit: slowing economy and political disarray in Europe and the United States. A 30-member committee co-chaired by Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat and Minister for Trade and Industry S Iswaran worked for a year to produce a series of proposals on how Singapore can thrive in this uncertain future.

The report highlights seven key sectors that will help Singapore maintain its momentum.

The Report of the Committee on the Future Economy highlights seven key sectors that will help Singapore maintain its momentum in the coming years.

The sectors are: finance, hub services, logistics, urban solutions, healthcare, the digital economy, and advanced manufacturing.

The report goes on to make a series of recommendations, some of which address concerns that Singapore’s startup ecosystem has voiced many times in the past couple of years.

Attract more investment

The report outlines the need for more capital for businesses and recommends making things easier for venture capital firms to operate in Singapore. Simplifying the regulatory framework for VCs is suggested (for example, the process of starting a new VC fund, which now takes six months to a year).

Singapore must also encourage more private equity firms to set up shop in order to address a significant financing gap for the country’s enterprises.

At the same time, the government itself needs to help high-growth businesses flourish by making it easier for them to connect with networks, access technology, and secure funding.

Enhance Singapore’s digital and tech capabilities

Data science and cybersecurity are mentioned in the report’s recommendations for a more digitally capable Singapore. This involves both education as well as practical application.

For example, it recommends that the country’s full-time service men and women be trained in cybersecurity, “given the strategic importance of cybersecurity to the economy as well as national security.” That’s some outside-the-box thinking!

The report recommends the increase of Singapore’s digital connectivity, with projects such as the HetNet plan (for seamless and uninterrupted internet access through mobile data and wifi). This is in line with its Smart Nation ambition.

Singapore also needs to build up its expertise and even be ready to export it – its test beds for technologies like driverless cars are mentioned as an example.

Singapore’s One North area has been used for testing of driverless vehicles by companies like Nutonomy. Photo credit: NuTonomy.

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