This will be drawn from a new $4.5 million fund aimed at boosting the takeup of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, and to position Singapore as a leader in the technology.

Called National RFID Innovation Platform, the scheme hopes to encourage companies and government agencies to adopt the wireless technology.

Over the next four years, it will co-fund about 30 such projects, providing an estimated $150,000 for each one.

Announcing this on Friday at the National RFID Centre, Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Mr S. Iswaran said the funds would help catalyse innovative ideas on RFID usage here.

Quoting figures from research firm Frost and Sullivan, he said the market for RFID is projected to exceed US$6 billion (S$8.5 billion) by 2009, a six-fold increase from US$1.1 billion in 2005.

The technology, which first gained mass usage a few years ago, has been adopted in a wide range of uses worldwide.

American retailer WalMart, for example, tags the inventory it receives from suppliers so it can better track its flow of goods.

In Singapore, the Urban Renewal Authority uses RFID-enabled season car park coupons. This means car owners do not need to renew their season parking manually, as with the paper-based system of the past.

The latest showcase of the technology will be at the Singapore Airshow this month.

Some 40,000 visitors will be given RFID-embedded passes, which will help record how much time each vistior spends at the show, as well as capture statistics on repeat visitors.

Regular tracking systems cannot do this, as they usually do not identify who the visitor is.

The buzz in the industry comes on the back of efforts by the National RFID Centre, set up in September 2006 to boost the take-up of wireless tags, to educate companies here.