Pioneer Incentive for Local and Foreign Companies

Mrs Lina Chiam asked the Minister for Trade and Industry for each of the past five years, how many pioneer certificates were issued to local SMEs and how many were issued to foreign companies and MNCs.

The Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr Lim Hng Kiang): Mr Speaker, Sir, the Pioneer Incentive is intended to attract and root new economic activities into Singapore, and to encourage companies to acquire new technologies. The aim is to drive the growth of high value-added or high-technology industries in Singapore. Through the Pioneer Incentive, we try to anchor what we call "queen bee" companies to locate here and build up a cluster. These "queen bee" companies would in turn attract other companies in their respective clusters to locate and expand in Singapore. In the process, they create business opportunities for our local companies, and generate spin-offs for companies in the services sectors, such as professional and financial services.

The Pioneer incentive is open to all companies. The criteria for award of the Pioneer Incentive are deliberately set high. Companies awarded the incentive are required to commit to generating new economic contribution of a substantive scale in Singapore. So quite naturally, it is the bigger companies who would tend to qualify for the Pioneer Incentive. Over the last five years, a total of 97 companies have been awarded the Pioneer Incentive. Of this, only 11 were SMEs, of which five were local SMEs. The total commitments from the 97 Pioneer Incentive companies amount to $8.8 billion in Fixed Assets Investments, $4.8 billion in annual Total Business Spending and the creation of over 10,000 skilled jobs.

Mrs Lina Chiam (Non-Constituency Member): One supplementary question. Is it possible to know the names of the five SMEs that have obtained the Pioneer status?

Mr Lim Hng Kiang: These companies are in the new sectors that we are nurturing, particularly the medical technology and the bio-tech sectors.

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