EnterpriseSG to focus on helping S’pore firms seek new growth opportunities amid global uncertainty

SINGAPORE – Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG) plans to strengthen efforts to help Singapore businesses build resilience and seek new growth opportunities amid an uncertain external economic environment.

One of the national agency’s priorities is increasing support for Singapore companies’ overseas expansion efforts, both to make new forays and to continue navigating an evolving business and tariff landscape.

To do so, EnterpriseSG will deepen its overseas presence, including by operating new overseas centres and working with trade associations and chambers (TACs) to provide on-the-ground support for businesses looking to internationalise.

“Today, we have offices in over 35 cities. We will add two more in the United States this year and in other regions as the need arises. We also worked with the Singapore Business Federation to launch two new Singapore Enterprise Centres in Dubai and Bengaluru,” said EnterpriseSG chairman Lee Chuan Teck, who spoke at its annual media briefing on Jan 28.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is also one area EnterpriseSG plans to focus more on by helping companies across various sectors to use it to transform their business and uplift their efficiencies.

“To understand how we can use AI to transform companies, we have conducted workshops with trade associations and companies in the logistics, manufacturing and wholesale trading sectors. The workshops revealed some systemic changes we need to make to enable firms in the sectors to harness the power of AI,” said Mr Lee.

“We will partner with industry partners to develop these transformative AI solutions, and also expand the workshops to other sectors.”

EnterpriseSG is also developing new ways to reach out and support more enterprises. “For one, we are looking at enhancing the way we collaborate with our TAC partners. This could be things like helping to establish stronger governance and equipping them with new skill sets and resources, so they can go on to scale their support for enterprises,” said Mr Lee.

The agency has also been beta-testing its digital channel to provide companies with more personalised support for market expansion.

“We hope to roll out more features and reach more companies in the year ahead,” said Mr Lee.

“What I’m more concerned about is that many SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) don’t know where to start – they do not even know what solutions to go for,” he said at a question-and-answer session during the media briefing.

“The focus for this coming year and the next few years is about giving them the knowledge so that they can then tap the support that we provide, rather than introduce new support that they may not even be aware of,” he said.

“It’s about broadening our outreach rather than creating new tools for support.”