Mr Speaker
In a world that is in turmoil, in retreat from multilateralism, it is often tempting and even intuitive for us to hunker-down and look to protect our own first. Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, Brexit, the success of the far right in many liberal democratic systems, are all reactions to the sense that many across the world have, that globalisation has failed, that we must batten down the hatches to ensure we work towards Singapore (whether me, we or otherwise) First.
Yet, I would argue that this worldview risks going down the very same pathways that would further entrench polarisation. Competition and remaining competitive may have been Singapore’s lifeblood, but I fear that focusing solely on ‘competitiveness’ and ‘protection’ would cause us to leave out areas of growth, of potential, that we must keep our sights on, as we search to find ways and means in which to build a better future for our economy and our country.
It also becomes important to have a hard look at where we stand in a world where truly global supply chains are being unpicked, localised, rewired, where sanctions and trade barriers are being erected and weaponised. And the role that I believe we must play has to revolve around trust, trust that we remain open, predictable and never an instrument of another’s strategic goals.
Singapore as a connector
And it is also why I believe that our way forward has to be a reframing of the role that we play in the world. Our foreign service teams and government agencies have done well in promoting and upholding Singapore’s role in the international economic order, but more can be done to emphasise Singapore’s facilitative approach - that is, to promote Singapore as not a competitor, but a connector. We should move away from thinking about how we compete with other great ports of the world, how we capture trade flows at the expense of other hubs, or to chase that higher ranking on a league table of port throughput, of airport connectivity. We should not see our role as accumulating trade flows for ourselves, but instead be the connection through which we make the movement of goods, people, capital, and ideas between other parties smoother, safer, faster, and more reliable.
Our Digital Trade infrastructure
I now turn to our trade infrastructure. Apart from more obvious physical infrastructure such as roads, container ports, and airports; we should stay attentive to the growing importance of digital public infrastructure.
This is defined generally as foundational hardware, software, regulatory frameworks and networks which allows cross-border exchange of digitally ordered or delivered goods and services. Singapore already has an advantage in this area, particularly in terms of digital intensity. An APEC report published in 2024 ranked us as among the best performing economies in terms of our overall digital infrastructure and digital governance frameworks. However, the same report shows a dip in Singapore’s relative rank in the ‘people pillar’, defined as how well the economy’s ‘human capital’ leverages technology.
This seems to be borne up by our attempts to digitalise our logistical supply chains.
Way back in 2007, Singapore launched “TradeXchange” to provide “seamless inter-connectivity among commercial and regulatory systems for the Singapore trade and logistics community.” In 2018, this was replaced by the Networked Trade Platform.
However, this now appears to have been replaced by SGTraDex, the Singapore Trade Data Exchange, launched in June 2022. This platform was backed by iMDA, and aims to streamline information flows and promote efficient data sharing across the fragmented global ecosystem through a common data highway. This new system was launched to facilitate digital trade and deter fraudsters, which became even more pressing in the wake of fraud allegations at trading companies.
https://www.gtreview.com/news/asia/singapores-trade-data-platform-goes-live/
Yet publicly available data suggests that SGTraDex, like TradeXchange and the NTP before it, has struggled to achieve broad adoption, let alone universal use. Could the minister thus clarify what progress has been made in terms of working towards the government’s declared adoption and value-creation metrics, and toward universal usage of the system, and also details of how this platform is used beyond our shores? Additionally, what were the learning points taken on board from the previous attempts in the attempted roll-outs of precedingPlatforms?
More broadly, Singapore plays an important role in shaping the global digital economy, whether through its network of Digital Economy Agreements, or by co-convening the Joint Statement Initiative on e-commerce at the WTO. Our agencies deserve commendation for their success in positioning Singapore as a ‘connector’ despite the highly contested international digital trade landscape.
Nonetheless, as Singapore plays this high-level role, we must look beyond the important but ultimately topline questions of Singapore’s competitiveness in such frameworks. Instead, we must pay more attention to whether such initiatives actually better the lives of our residents and generate value for our businesses. In particular, we must go beyond helping SMEs digitalise and instead equip them to take advantage of internationalisation in the digital economy, so that they are not just more effectively digitalising as businesses, but evolving to become more valuable in the digital economy.
That Singapore is seen as relatively weaker in the ‘people pillar’ of the digital economy suggests that there is room for improvement. It suggests that Singaporeans and Singaporean companies are benefitting less from the digital economy when compared to those in other economies. We must also concern ourselves with the possibility of large multinational corporations dominating high-value ecosystems while local enterprises take up low-value, low-margin activities. Thus, could the minister provide more details on our efforts thus far in countering economic enclaving, and on our plans to enable SMEs to continue playing their part in building Singapore’s role as a connector.
In view of this, we should think carefully about the apparent gap between our government’s efforts, whether domestic or international, and the actual benefits felt by our people and companies. While we were recently told that median household market incomes for residents crossed the twelve thousand dollar mark, this does not take away how many Singaporeans still worry about wages relative to housing, transport, caregiving, and the assorted costs of living. There is a sense that even Singaporeans earning decent wages cannot feel secure, particularly when contrasted against job security in an age of AI and digitalisation, and the safety nets available if they are rendered irrelevant by a fast-changing and cutthroat economy. Our SMEs too may struggle to see how the high-level agreements signed by our government have helped them, if the value of any unlocked opportunities are snapped up by larger players and they remain confined to an ever smaller margin. Could the minister therefore share how the Government assesses whether our digital economy and connectivity strategies are translating into tangible gains for the average Singaporean and Singaporean firms, not only in aggregate data, but in an economy clearly oriented towards better jobs, stronger local enterprises, greater SME participation, and a clear pathway for ordinary citizens to benefit from the future phases of growth.
Geopolitical considerations
Any discussion about our role in global trade will not be complete without taking into account geopolitical complexities.
Singapore needs the free flow of goods, people, and data to survive as an island, and prosper as a trade-dependent economy. This reality makes us susceptible to geopolitical upheavals, major power rivalries, and conflicts, even those far beyond our borders and control. But none of this implies that Singapore cannot and should not do more to mitigate the transportation and connectivity risks we face.
We cannot overstate how vulnerable Singapore is. News reports and government data suggest that shipping, maritime, aviation, and related industries account for around 12 percent of Singapore’s GDP. For Singapore’s tradeflows, which are about 3 times our GDP, 90 percent depends on sea lanes. Furthermore, we continue to rely on imports to meet our energy needs and our nutritional needs, especially given our move away from the “30 by 30” sufficiency goal. If Singapore’s connectivity with the world is disrupted, we will find it hard to make a living, to keep the lights on, or even to put food on the table.
Conflicts in Europe and the Middle East have directly affected everyday activity in Singapore, and we continue to feel their consequences today when we pay our utilities bills, fill our gas tanks, or shop for daily groceries. The expansion of modern conflict to include attacks on critical infrastructure, such as damage to submarine cables around the Baltics, Taiwan and the red sea; or the use of economic coercion and other grey zone tactics, whether these are blockades or disinformation campaigns, underscore how Singapore and Singaporeans may bear the brunt and costs of these apparently faraway developments, even if we are not direct parties to the conflict. Faced with such tumult, we cannot afford to settle for being an oasis of superficial stability. Instead, we must actively assure both Singaporeans and international partners that Singapore will remain reliable, valuable, and connected in any future scenario.
So, while the current government looks at enhancing Singapore’s position as a transportation and communications hub, I would like to seek more details on our plans for making Singapore the location of choice despite our earlier mentioned vulnerabilities. In the plans for transportation, could the government lay out more fully how they intend to mitigate the risk of Singapore being cut off from global and regional transportation networks and communication lines. Could the Minister clarify the specific risk frameworks and contingency plans that would keep Singapore connected if key maritime, aviation, digital, or energy supply routes are disrupted, and how these plans and frameworks are coordinated across agencies?
Singapore has been severely tested in the past. The COVID-19 pandemic tested the resilience of our open economy, bringing to light potential chokepoints in our access to labour and critical supplies. But today’s crises are more complex and fractious, and the coming challenges may be even more wide-ranging and long-lasting. Deeply integrating contingency planning into the transportation plans at hand will help assure citizens and partners alike.
Conclusion
To conclude Mr Speaker, as the world is becoming more volatile and less forgiving, Singapore must redouble efforts to remain globally indispensable, and to work to fortify the stable international order on which our prosperity depends. In doing so, we must champion connection and collaboration, instead of close-minded competition.
But this larger strategic view must never obscure the real value of economic success. We do not pursue growth or connectivity for their own sake. We do so for Singaporeans. We must pay closer attention to whether our policies are really helping our workers, households, and businesses feel that our lives are getting better, and that we are equipped to face the future economy.
Even as we continue deepening our connections with the world, Singaporeans rightly want to know how we are buffering ourselves: how we ensure sufficiency of food and essential supplies, how we strengthen resilience in transport and logistics, and whether we have baked contingency planning into our economy and infrastructure.
Singapore’s development story, the role that we play in connecting the world, has never been just a once-off miracle. Instead, ours is a story of constant adaptation, renewal, and resolve. We have to prove that our small, open country can remain deeply connected to the world, while retaining a fair, inclusive and ultimately resilient economy.
