SINGAPORE - Senior Minister of State Lee Yi Shyan will drive the SkillsFuture outreach to businesses by working closely with firms and industry associations to form tie-ups with training providers, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Thursday.

Mr Lee has a background of active engagement with over a thousand companies over the years in his roles at EDB, Spring Singapore and IE Singapore, said Mr Tharman.

He was speaking at the EDB (Economic Development Board) Society's 25th anniversary gala dinner at the Fullerton Hotel, where he emphasised constant evolution as the key to economic strength.

Key to preparing the workforce for Singapore's new "innovation-driven economy" is SkillsFuture, a national programme still in the works which aims to help Singaporeans deepen their skills, Mr Tharman said.

For its part, EDB will take charge of seven of the 25 sectoral manpower plans that had earlier been outlined in the SkillsFuture framework.

The seven sectors that EDB will lead are aerospace, marine, chemicals, electronics, logistics, biopharma and precision engineering.

Mr Tharman said that EDB will work closely with all stakeholders in these sectors.

In his speech to some 350 EDB staff and veterans, Mr Tharman also emphasised that Singapore has embarked on a new phase in its economic development that involves a shift "from value-adding to value creation" and "mastery of skills in every vocation".