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| Fostering
entrepreneurship |
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| Ms Lim chaired a lively
panel discussion which sparked off
an interesting exchange of questions
and answers between the panel and the
participants. |
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The Civil Service College
and PS21 Office jointly organised a conference entitled “Fostering
Entrepreneurship: The Role of Government” on 31
October
2003.
The conference was part of Global Entrepolis @ Singapore 2003, a week-long event
organised by the Economic Development Board.
Two hundred and seventy delegates participated in the conference. They learnt
about the Government’s plan and its role in promoting entrepreneurship
in Singapore. They also gained insights from the experiences of other governments.
The conference was opened by the guest of honour, Mr Raymond Lim, Minister for
Entrepreneurship and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Trade and Industry.
In his opening speech, Mr Lim stressed the imperative need for Singapore to be
a creative and entrepreneurial nation as Singapore can no longer solely compete
based on costs due to the emergence of lower cost and resource-rich competitors
like our regional neighbours.
He also said that for Singapore to enjoy sustained economic growth, entrepreneurship
can be a key driver to help Singapore make the leap from an investment-based
economy to an innovation-based one.
He outlined three main areas in which he sees the Government playing an active
role to boost the entrepreneurial spirit in Singapore: Firstly, in the area of
Policies — through mechanisms such as the Pro-Enterprise Panel (PEP), Zero-In-Process
(ZIP) and Public Officers Working on Eliminating Red-tape (POWER), to continually
drive changes in the Public Service (visit www.cutredtape.gov.sg to find out
how the mechanisms work).
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| Mr Lim giving the opening address. |
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Mr Lim said he was heartened to know that PEP has received over 1,000 suggestions
since it was started in August 2000. Half of them have resulted in rule changes.
Many agencies have also reviewed their rules under the Rules Review Process (RRP)
and implemented changes.
Secondly, he talked about Processes — where the default way of dealing
and interacting with businesses will be to respond with “Yes” rather
than “No”.
Said Mr Lim: “For the Government to be truly pro-enterprise, our public
officers must have business perspective. They need to understand the impact that
Government rules can have on businesses. They need to know how to craft and implement
rules in a pro-enterprise manner, without compromising their regulatory objectives.
When they receive business proposals that do not fall squarely within the book,
they need to actively consider alternatives rather than reject them outright.”
Finally, in the area of People, the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Civil
Service College are revamping the Cut Red Tape Workshop which will help to change
our officers’ mindsets so that they will be more empathetic towards businesses.
The workshop is now mandatory for all executive-level officers.
The other conference speakers were Mr Patrick Daniel, Managing Editor of the
English and Malay Newspapers Division, Singapore Press Holdings, and member of
the ACE (Action Community for Entrepreneurship) committee; Dr Joshua Mok, Associate
Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, City University of Hong
Kong; and Mr Christopher Curtis, Chief Entrepreneurship Officer of the Centre
for Entrepreneurship Education and Development in Canada. |
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By PS COE
(Innovation Unit), CSC
Next: In the spotlight: TEC at mega
exposition
|
