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Singapore Finance Minister says govt will help businesses face challenges

Posted on February 17th, 2008 by Mindy Yong.
Categories: Singapore News.

By Hoe Yeen Nie

SINGAPORE : The government will help businesses cope with challenges faced, but it cannot distort the market.

Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam made this point at the sidelines of a community event on Sunday.

He was responding to feedback from the business community that there was little in the Budget to help them cope with rising costs.

Mr Tharman said the government has been helping businesses cope with the twin shortages of office space and workers.

The measures include releasing a fair bit of transitional office space, while developing regional sites.

It will also move some government departments out of the Central Business District, thus freeing up some space for the private sector.

In this way, the office space crunch can be eased without distorting market forces.

Other measures include helping businesses to innovate even as it continually reviews its tax regime as well as the foreign workers dependency ratio to make sure Singapore stays competitive.

Urging Singaporeans to look beyond short-term handouts, Mr Tharman said they should cast their eyes to the future.

This is why promoting lifelong learning is a major theme of this year’s Budget.

It’s also the reason behind giving incentives to companies to invest in research and development.

Mr Tharman said: “Singapore can tide over inflation, short-term problems. What matters is 5 years from now, are we going to be a vibrant economy, are we still going to be ahead and on top? That’s why we’re investing more in education, in R&D. That’s what Singaporeans will benefit from. So I would say we got to turn our minds away from the immediate benefits that are being handed out.” - CNA/ch
Source : Channel NewsAsia - 17 Feb 2008

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