1.               Local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the heartlands can look forward to free business advice and greater access to government schemes with the one-stop satellite SME Centres at the Community Development Councils (CDCs) across Singapore.

 

2.               Today, SPRING Singapore, the People’s Association (PA), the five Community Development Councils (CDCs), and the five Trade Associations and Chambers sealed the multi-agency collaboration dedicated to help SMEs seeking to upgrade their capabilities and raise productivity. In addition to business advisory, small local businesses will be able to access value-added services such as employment placement and training assistance to meet their manpower needs through the CDC’s career centre. 

 

3.               This collaboration is the result of direct feedback from grassroots and small local business owners – many of whom are heartland residents – asking for business advice because they lack knowledge of who to turn to, or the various government grants available to them.  Hence, these local business owners are unable to take full advantage of these assistance schemes.Following the success of the pilot satellite SME Centre@NorthEast, launched in June 2012, the collaboration will address this gap and assist small businesses right where they are.

 

4.               Since SME Centre@NorthEast was set up in June 2012, over 1,000 heartland businesses have benefitted from its business advisory in improving their productivity, upgrading capabilities and accessing government assistance schemes.  In fact, through this pilot, many heartland businesses supported North East CDC and the grassroots organisations in the district by contributing back to the community in the form of community vouchers for the needy, or discount coupons for residents for the purchase of their goods and services.  This allowed the heartland businesses, CDCs and the residents to forge a closer bond towards a better community.

 

5.               Mr Ang Hak Seng, BBM, Chief Executive Director, People’s Association, said, “What we want to do is to help our residents who run their own neighbourhood shops do better, by bringing the expertise and services offered by SME Centres to them.  When our local businesses do well, this not only offers higher level of service to our residents and more local employment opportunities, more importantly, it adds to the vibrancy of the community by providing places for our residents to hang out and get to know their neighbours better.”

 

6.               “Over the past year, we have stepped up our outreach to the smaller businesses as we recognise that they face more challenges in the tougher business climate today,” commented Mr Tan Kai Hoe, Chief Executive of SPRING Singapore. “As such, we are pleased that People’s Association and the Trade Associations and Chambers have come aboard to help us extend our services to these SMEs. We are also thankful for the strong support and collaboration of the Mayors to bring business advisory to the heartlands. With the satellite SME Centres, we hope that more SMEs will be able to get help to upgrade capabilities and improve productivity.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8.               A new satellite SME Centre, the SME Centre@SouthWest, was launched by Dr Amy Khor and Mr George Huang, President, Singapore Manufacturing Federation today as well. The SME Centre@SouthWest is a collaboration between the Singapore Manufacturing Federation (SMF) and the South West CDC, with the support of SPRING. It will be managed by the SME Centre@SMF.  

 

 

10.           Chairman of Mayors’ Committee and Mayor of South West District, Dr Amy Khor said, “Setting up an SME centre at each district is an excellent initiative that will bring business support services and schemes offered by the Government closer to our local enterprises, especially micro and small businesses.  The CDCs are already working with Workforce Development Agency and companies to organise job fairs and job placements for residents looking for work.  With the co-location of SME centres at the CDCs, there will be greater synergy and coordination to assist local businesses to upgrade their capabilities and productivity through business advisory and support offered by the centres.  These business owners can also offer jobs to residents living in the community. We hope as we build up this network of SMEs within the community that they can also extend a helping hand to the community. The launch of the SME Centre@SouthWest is really timely as we look towards reaching out to our local businesses in the South West district.”

 

11.           “At our SME Centre@SMF, we have served more than 3,000 SMEs yearly. The launch of the new satellite SME Centre@SouthWest will allow SMF to extend our reach to serve even more SMEs. In addition, as there is a concentration of manufacturing companies in the western area of Singapore, SMF is well-positioned to reach out and support this segment of the business community,” said Mr George Huang, President of Singapore Manufacturing Federation.