Budget 2023 debate: Jamus Lim on inspiring long-term economic growth
Singapore’s public expenditure on R&D remains inadequate, especially in the “D” part of R&D, said MP Jamus Lim in Parliament on Thursday (Feb 23). He said applied research expenditures actually declined in 2020, which is “worrisome”, since it is such translational research - adapting basic research into commercially viable products, which often experiences a high failure rate - where the Government can play a critical role in risk-sharing, with a potentially high payoff for the economy. Assoc Prof Lim asked if the Government would consider setting up specific funding buckets that allow the funding of moonshots with more flexible targets and fill more of the gap between seed and Series A funding. He said another approach could be via a more involved public-private partnership model. He said enhancing productivity by addressing the lag in national R&D expenditure vis-a-vis leading economies was one way Singapore can inspire long-term economic growth. He also called for the burden of higher corporate taxation to be placed on MNCs that are more able to afford it and reiterated a previous suggestion to expand the safety net for workers by implementing redundancy insurance.
Singapore’s public expenditure on R&D remains inadequate, especially in the “D” part of R&D, said MP Jamus Lim in Parliament on Thursday (Feb 23). He said applied research expenditures actually declined in 2020, which is “worrisome”, since it is such translational research - adapting basic research into commercially viable products, which often experiences a high failure rate - where the Government can play a critical role in risk-sharing, with a potentially high payoff for the economy. Assoc Prof Lim asked if the Government would consider setting up specific funding buckets that allow the funding of moonshots with more flexible targets and fill more of the gap between seed and Series A funding. He said another approach could be via a more involved public-private partnership model. He said enhancing productivity by addressing the lag in national R&D expenditure vis-a-vis leading economies was one way Singapore can inspire long-term economic growth. He also called for the burden of higher corporate taxation to be placed on MNCs that are more able to afford it and reiterated a previous suggestion to expand the safety net for workers by implementing redundancy insurance.
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