不靠石油不靠地！新加坡如何用“全球节点”战略躺赚？

By working with partners from around the world, our enterprises can tap on a broader bench of expertise, and tap on collective strengths, to unlock growth.

For the Singapore economy to stay competitive, we must stay open.

The work of SICC and other chambers – in building bridges between foreign and local enterprises and sustaining support for free trade and investment is very valuable.

That was how you started in the first place 188 years ago. And as we go forward into Industry 4.0, your focus on collaborative innovation will be most useful.

In the coming years, I believe science, technology and innovation will drive the future of economic growth. There are several reasons.

The first is demographics – the global workforce is shrinking – due both to ageing populations and declining birthrates.

The UN projects that by the mid-2030s, people aged 80 and above globally will outnumber infants.

By 2080, 55 years from now, the number of people aged 65 and above globally will outnumber those aged below 18.

In Singapore, around one in four Singaporeans is expected to be 65 years or older by 2030 –25% of our population. Just 15 years ago when I was still young in 2010, the figure was around 10%.

Now the second is rapid technological advancements.

In particular, advances in AI are disrupting business models, companies and even entire industries.

With AI’s potential to magnify and entrench competitive advantage, competition over technology is also increasingly taking on geopolitical dimensions.

The third reason for the importance of technology and innovation is the need for businesses to address climate change.

For us in Singapore, a low-lying island state, climate change is existential.

Some studies project that the global economy could face 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090, unless global climate action is stepped up urgently and at scale.

For enterprises, sustainability is not just about a responsibility to society, but about the long-term viability of your business, the stability of your supply chains, and consumption patterns.

Harnessing technology and innovation, to build new products, solutions and systems, and to do it at scale will be critical.

So let me take this opportunity to commend SICC for expanding the SICC Awards to new categories like “Best Technological Collaboration”, “Most Sustainable Collaboration” and “Most Scalable Collaboration”.

I also appreciate that the SICC Awards provides not only a platform to compete, but also to share their ideas with one another, and with others.

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