Budget 2022: ‘First priority’ to strengthen digital capabilities; push for innovation also on agenda

SINGAPORE: Amid Singapore’s “first priority” to strengthen its digital capabilities, about S$200 million will be set aside over the next few years to enhance schemes that build such capabilities among firms and workers, said Finance Minister Lawrence Wong on Friday (Feb 18).

This focus comes as Singapore has a “window of opportunity over the next few years to establish leading positions in key market segments”, said Mr Wong in his speech for Budget 2022.

“We will accelerate our investments in new capabilities to power our next stage of growth.”

The S$200 million sum will go partly towards enhancing initiatives such as the Advanced Digital Solutions scheme, which helps firms adopt cutting-edge digital solutions such as in robotics.

It will also go towards expanding the Grow Digital scheme, which helps businesses access overseas markets digitally.

This will come on top of infrastructure investments in broadband infrastructure and future technologies such as 6G.

More details will be announced at the Ministry of Communications and Information’s Committee of Supply session, he said.

PUSHING FOR INNOVATION

Mr Wong also stressed the importance of research and development in innovation, but said Singapore’s total business expenditure on R&D “lags” other economies.

He also noted that most of this R&D is currently driven by multi-national companies.

“Local enterprises, which comprise about 80 per cent of all firms, account for only about a quarter of total business R&D expenditure,” he said.

To help local firms undertake R&D, the capacity of centres that provide research and innovation support to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will also be increased.

There are currently more than 80 such centres across polytechnics and Institutes of Technical Education, which work closely with SMEs to undertake industry projects – often leading to innovations, he said.

To further support such collaborations, these centres’ capacities will be increased such that they will be able to undertake close to 2,000 innovation projects across five pilot sectors over the next five years.

These sectors are: Agri-tech, construction, food manufacturing, precision engineering and retail.

“This amounts to an eight-fold increase in the number of innovation projects undertaken in these sectors,” said Mr Wong.