MTI Dialogue Session (all posts)

I was at a dialogue session with the Minister of State for Trade and Industry Mr S Iswaran today about the Singapore economy and our views on where we're going, and the notes are too long to finish in one post, so I'll do it in spurts, and tag each one "mti dialogue".


The session opened with a presentation on where the Singapore economy was going.

Right now 77.3% of our GDP is composed of external demand, and only 3.4% government spending.

I was expecting a list of challenges but the only one we got was the rise of China and India - others are getting cheaper and better.

The strategies laid out for us to compete were:

Speed - We can move quickly as a small, united country, capitalising on our efficiency and infrastructure.

Trust - We have a good reputation, good in areas like financial services, aerospace precision engineering and intellectual property.

Innovation - We can move into new markets and do things different, eg Environment and Water Technology (Hyflux), Interactive and digital media and Life sciences

Breadth - We offer a spectrum of related products and services. If we only had a single offering we would have to compete on price, but we offer complementary services. For example Bio-tech <-> Pharmaceuticals <-> Health care <-> Medical technology

Buzz - We have talent and ideas. The IRs, new Botanical gardens and rejuvenation of the Singapore river are part of the plan to generate Buzz.

Our growth prospects are 4-6% for 2007 (MTI estimate - the other organisations didn't give such a large range).


The dialogue bit then began.

Question: It was asked whether there would be enough jobs for people in the life sciences.

Answer: Life sciences is a broad area. In the Singapore context we're going for bio-technology and pharmaceuticals, because we can capitalise on our strengths; they require a high knowledge content (education plays a role here) and their taking 12 years from identifying a molecule to bringing it to market as a drug requires a rigorous intellectual property regime so the research costs can be recouped. Drugs need quality control and consistency for safety reasons.

Those with basic life science degrees were advised to go for pharmaceutical companies or biotechnology where they could support research. The rest were told to go for PhDs.

The life science degree was feted as offering mind training: 'The world is your oyster', and this applied to other disciplines as well, eg Engineers diversify into other fields.