February 12, 2017, 09:13 PM 
The report by The Committee On The Future Economy was launched last week. If you have not heard about it by now, given the media blitz in the last few days, you must be pretty bo chup about Singapore.
Outspoken former PAP Member of Parliament (MP) Inderjit Singh is certainly not one who doesn't care. Especially on a topic that is close to his heart.
For those who are not familiar with him, he was a four-term MP serving since 1996. He retired before GE2015, as the MP of Ang Mo Kio GRC.
Singh is well-known for speaking his mind on issues related to the economy, and speaking out for local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). He coined the phrase "
He is perhaps best known for being absent for the vote on PWP in the house and his candid media interview on the issue.
Trust this assertive former MP to tell it like it is after scrutinising the contents of the CFE report. He has taken upon himself to write a whopping 3,222 word Facebook post that reads like a proper report on its own.
Here are four takeaways from his critical but somewhat constructive post:
1. Set up a dedicated agency to support local SMEs
Singh calls it the Local Economic Development Board (LEDB). He believes that this is the "best way" to realise one of the report's recommendations: Provide high-growth enterprises with more dedicated and customised support.
The CFE suggests “lead Government agencies could be assigned to coordinate all Government assistance rendered to enterprises”, but Singh thinks it has been an approach that has not worked well in the past.
"We should bite the bullet and create a one stop all encompassing SME and start up agency – like a “Local EDB” with the same resources, power and funding like EDB. It is about time we have one Local EDB that follows the company from birth till the company become a global SMEs (and supported by agencies who may be experts in certain horizontal agencies – IT, Internationalization, Finance, etc.). These verticals should be invisible to the SMEs if the LEDB coordinates everything."
"My bigger worry is that we will see huge structural problems that will take a long time to resolve if we don’t change the economic growth model of the country – rebalancing the contribution of FDI and MNCs vs local companies."
2. Change the strategy of Industry Transformation Maps (ITMs)
Under the S$4.5 billion Industry Transformation Programme, roadmaps are being developed for 23 industries to address issues within each industry and deepen partnerships between Government, firms, industries, trade associations and chambers. It is one of the key strategies in the report.
For example for the Retail Industry:
He predicts that future industries will not emerge from clearly defined sectors but from a mix of sectors, hence there is a need to adapt to the changing landscape.
"It would have been better to reorganize the government agencies to verticals – size and stage of a company – i.e. start-up/SMEs, MNCs, GLCs, Local MNCs and Horizontals – by technology or core competencies. This will require a major reorganization of government agencies. I would have expected the CFE to be more radical in the recommendations for this area as the old models will not work well in the future as we will see companies emerging from nowhere and becoming big and big companies leaving Singapore or completely disappearing."
3. Learn from past mistakes
As the saying goes: Implementation is key. And Singh believes that there are lessons to be learnt from the past.
Source: MTI and MOF website
Singh had participated in a few of government's economic initiatives, including Technopreneurship 21 (T21), the Economics Review Committee and the Economic Strategies Committee. He thinks it is crucial to review "why there was failure in implementation" in some areas, e.g. producitvity.
"The government needs to understand why there was failure in implementation because if they don’t understand what went wrong, we risk another round of implementation missteps which may not yield the desired outcomes. It is important that the government agencies responsible for implementation have a much better feel of the ground so that they can get things right this time."
4. The CFE report is our best bet
One can detect a sense of disappointment at the report in Singh's post. He had hoped for "some fresh and significant ideas" but found that "the paper (report) is not as inspiring as hoped".
But he remained hopeful that more good ideas will emerge during the implementation phase and looked forward to greater clarity on performance measurement and time frame.
"The CFE report is out, this is the best we have. We all need to work hard to recreate a vibrant economy of the future for the future of Singaporeans. Hopefully more good ideas will emerge at the implementation stage. We also need to know what we are working towards. So implementation is key, but unlike the ESC we don’t have KPIs here or major timelines. Greater clarity is needed on this."
For those who have some time to read during what's remaining of the weekend, or searching for brain food to start a brand new week, here is the full post:
Related articles:
Committee on the Future Economy Report: Heng Swee Keat presents a budget before budget
4 things S’poreans don’t care about at the Committee on the Future Economy press conference
Top photo from Inderjit Singh Facebook
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