Chairman Sir,
Singapore’s economy has grown by an average of 5% a year over the last 10 years but productivity growth from 1999 to 2009 has only averaged 1% a year. The bulk contribution to the low productivity rate is probably linked to the Government’s policy of allowing too many cheap, low-skilled foreign workers into the workforce to generate economic growth.
Singapore lags behind Hong Kong in terms of both labour productivity growth and real wages growth over the same period.
I understand that the MOM-MTI Joint Taskforce on Productivity was set up in February 2009 to examine the problem of declining productivity in the services sector.
Last Tuesday, DPM Teo gave a rosy update on the progress of the National Productivity and Continuing Education Council and its effort to spur productivity growth. He highlighted a few companies that have done well in their productivity drive. One of the companies mentioned was Tan Seng Kee Foods, a small home grown company that started as a sole proprietorship but now employs about 30 employees.
DPM Teo also mentioned that about half of the first $1 billion put into the National Productivity Fund has been opened up to fund productivity initiatives last year.
I would like the Minister to provide an update on the number and percentage of small SMEs like Tan Seng Kee Foods that have benefitted from the productivity fund last year; the percentage share of the fund used by majority local-owned and majority foreign-owned SMEs; and the number of foreign workers hired by the SMEs before and after initiating their productivity drives using the productivity fund.