wild places | wild happenings | wild news
make a difference for our wild places

home | links | search the site
  all articles latest | past | articles by topics | search wildnews
wild news on wildsingapore
  Today Online 4 Jan 06
Ensuring pastures for future cash cows
With a $5-billion hoard, Govt panel sets out to identify, develop new research areas
Tan Hui Leng huileng@newstoday.com.sg

Channel NewsAsia 3 Jan 06
Environmental Technologies and Digital Media to be new areas for R&D
Asha Popatlal, Channel NewsAsia

Two new areas will be the focus for research and development efforts in Singapore over the next 10 years. They are Environmental and Water Technologies and Interactive and Digital Media. And together with biomedical sciences, the National Research Foundation hopes they will double the number of jobs and triple value-added to the economy by 2015.

The National Research Foundation held its inaugural board meeting on Tuesday. The NRF's first Board meeting was attended by six ministers. With an initial war chest of S$5 billion for 5 years, its directive is to fund R&D initiatives that would reap economic benefits for Singapore.

Dr Tony Tan acknowledged that the sum is a lot of money and that it is a risk but it is also not a decision taken lightly. While the economy may be doing well now, he says Singapore's economic advantages will be whittled away if it doesn't go into this major thrust now.

Environmental and Water Technologies as well as Interactive and Digital Media were first identified by NRF Chairman Dr Tony Tan as potential investment areas in August last year. The initiative was endorsed by the Board at its inaugural meeting.

But why these two areas? Dr Tony Tan, Chairman, National Research Foundation, said: "The lesson which we have learned from biomedical initiative in the last 5 years is that to make an impact on the world as well as reap economic benefits we have to identify areas where Singapore has a comparative advantage and which are growing."

In the water industry, Singapore's expertise in using innovative technologies to produce clean water from waste water reclamation and seawater desalination has been exported to China and the Middle East.

In digital media, big names, such as Lucasfilm, have set up shop here even as local companies are building up capability in areas like animation. Both areas are expected to grow at double digit rates annually world-wide.

The Board has appointed steering committees to focus on each of these two areas. Helping to lead the charge is Mr Teo Ming Kian in a newly created post of Permanent Secretary for National R&D.

Mr Teo said: "The important thing is to put flesh and structure to support that vision because otherwise you can have dreams but that dream won't come true."

The Foundation is looking for concrete results. It hopes to double jobs from the current 40,000 to 80,000 and triple value-added to the economy from the current S$8.9 billion to S$27 billion a year by 2015.

And it's not stopping at these 3 areas. Over the next 5 years, it plans to identify 5 sectors which can grow as well as the biomedical initiative and to add on to the present clusters - in electronics, chemicals and general engineering. Dr Tony Tan said: "Over the next 5 years, we can identify 5 sectors, which can grow as well as our biomedical initiative and add that on to our present clusters in electronics, in chemicals, in general engineering. We will have a very strong economy in 10 years time, well able to take on competition from India and China."

The money will be used for both public and private sector initiatives. - CNA/ch

Today Online 4 Jan 06
Ensuring pastures for future cash cows
With a $5-billion hoard, Govt panel sets out to identify, develop new research areas
Tan Hui Leng huileng@newstoday.com.sg

DECIDING that research could be a springboard for Singapore's growth, the Republic has singled out areas of environment and water technologies, and interactive and digital media. The Government has also approved initial funding of $5 billion for the National Research Foundation (NRF) from this year through 2010.

Chaired by former Deputy Prime Minister Dr Tony Tan, the NRF will coordinate the research activities of different agencies within the larger national framework and fund strategic R&D initiatives that would generate economic benefits for Singapore.

The two new areas will add on to the biomedical sciences initiative, which the Government launched six years ago.

Currently, the three areas provide 40,000 jobs with value added (VA) of $8.9 billion. The Government is aiming to increase this to 80,000 jobs and $27 billion VA by 2015.

The NRF will also identify other sectors over the next five years. "If over the next five years, we can identify five sectors that we can develop as well as our biomedical initiative and add this on in our present cluster in electronics, in chemicals, in engineering, we will have a very strong economy in 10 years time," said Dr Tan.

It is not just specialists in these areas who will benefit as ordinary Singaporeans would be able to tap into ancillary services that these industries would require. "These two areas are poised for rapid growth in Asia and the world," said Dr Tan. About $2 billion has been spent on the biomedical initiative over the past two years, and the newly-identified clusters would need some $1 billion each over the next five years to develop, said Dr Tan.

"A lesson which we have learnt from our biomedical science initiative ... is that to make a significant impact on the world as well as economic benefit for Singapore, we have no choice but to specialise," he added.

Singapore has already made its mark in environmental and water technologies, producing clean water from waste water reclamation and seawater desalination.

As for the interactive and digital media, whose growth is explosive, Singapore has managed to attract Lucasfilm from the US and Koei of Japan to set up studios here. Two steering committees, comprising key ministers, have been set up to focus on the two newly-identified areas.

Operationally overseeing the NRF is Mr Teo Ming Kian--its supervising permanent secretary. "We have not gone into this lightly, we know the risks. But the Cabinet feels that unless we are able to take this risk and give this major push, we will slowly find our economic advantages being whittled away," said Dr Tan.

Singapore wants spending on R&D to touch about three per cent of GDP by 2010. By 2015, the Government hopes that most of this will come from the private sector.
links
Related articles on Singapore: general environmental issues
about the site | email ria
  News articles are reproduced for non-profit educational purposes.
 

website©ria tan 2003 www.wildsingapore.com