S'pore ICT sector gets S$46M boost

SINGAPORE--The country's information and communications technology (ICT) industry  is set to benefit from a S$46 million (US$36.6 million) initiative to improve productivity over the next five years. 

Called the Infocomm Industry Productivity Roadmap, it will help local companies acquire new capabilities and resources to remodel their business, facilitate access to cost-effective shared resources, build up specialized skillsets, and extend their market reach, said Lui Tuck Yew, Singapore's Minister for Transport and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Speaking at the Asia-Pacific ICT Summit's opening on Tuesday, the minister revealed the roadmap will be driven by Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and the National Productivity and Continuing Education Council. The two agencies have set aside S$46 million to execute the strategy. 

The roadmap will focus on companies in three sub-segments, namely software development, system integration, and IT consultancy--all of which had lower labour productivity than the national average, Lui noted.

Ronnie Tay, CEO of IDA, who also attended the Summit on Tuesday, added that the agency will take a "two-pronged approach" to this roadmap.

Firstly, it will make it easier and more affordable for local ICT companies in these three industry sub-segments to gain access to productivity tools, services and expertise through demand aggregation, grant incentives and manpower training, he said. Secondly, it will accelerate these companies' transition toward being more productive and scalable by helping them acquire market-ready offerings such as product management and software architecture for cloud computing, he added.

The Productivity Roadmap will benefit more than 1,100 ICT companies and train 10,000 ICT professionals. It will also raise value-add per worker of the three segments from S$79,451 (US$63,234) to S$105,434 (US$83,903) over the next five years, Tay added.