It will give a voice to government and internationally to member companies
Singapore, Tuesday 30 June 2009 - The Singapore Business Federation Council, led by Chairman Mr. Tony Chew, affirmed that the apex chamber will continue to proactively represent the concerns of the business community to government and facilitate their efforts to leverage help schemes and tap into business opportunities locally and overseas. This was the message to some 230 SBF members who attended its seventh Annual General Meeting today.
It was exactly a year ago in June 2008 that the new SBF Council was elected with Mr. Tony Chew succeeding Mr. Stephen Lee as Chairman of the SBF. Separately, Mr. Teng Theng Dar had come on board as Chief Executive Officer in February of that year.
Helping businesses cope with the downturn
By October 2008, recognising that it would be a challenging period ahead for businesses, SBF promptly updated its members on the latest economic outlook, best practices in financial and risk management, and government?s training, loan financing and other incentive schemes.
The dialogue sessions, business sentiment surveys and timely briefings helped to apprise members of the latest developments and provided them with useful tips for decision making.
In December 2008, SBF initiated an important dialogue between business leaders and the Ministry of Trade & Industry and Ministry of Finance to discuss the difficulties faced by companies in regard to business costs and cash flow.
The SBF Council is pleased that the Resilience Package unveiled in Budget 2009 has helped to alleviate some of the major concerns of businesses.
On-going business facilitation efforts
Amidst these initiatives, SBF was also proactive in assisting members to tap into business opportunities locally and overseas, particularly to markets less impacted by the downturn. In 2008, the federation led and supported 13 business missions and received 49 business delegations from 22 countries. The information sharing, networking and business matching sessions that arose from these inbound and outbound visits benefitted close to 3,600 participants and helped our members tap into $340 million worth of deals.
Voice representation
Besides facilitating dialogue between the business community and government on business cost and cash flow issues, SBF also organised 21 key national policy briefings on government help schemes, wages, employment and security issues. These briefings were useful in updating members on the latest developments, and in facilitating feedback which SBF relayed to the government agencies for their decision making.
At the international level, SBF represented the interests of the business community at regional and multilateral fora such as the ASEAN and APEC business meetings. Together with the business communities from other member countries, it championed stronger economic collaboration, and free and open trade.
Helping businesses build capability and resilience
During the year, SBF's Capacity Building Group and Industry Development Department partnered member companies to enhance their competitiveness through capacity building services such as EnterpriseOne Business Advisory Services, Global Sourcing Hub, Mentorship Program and several clean energy initiatives.
SBF's FundsAssist@EBIS, for example, was instrumental in imparting useful tips to members to help them increase their success rate of obtaining bank loans. It also provides a service to help members put together a business plan.
In the area of clean energy, SBF initiated the Clean Energy Business Group and the Clean Energy Test-bedding Community to facilitate commercialisation and adoption of clean energy solutions. The launch of the inaugural Singapore Sustainable Development Industry Directory and Green IT Survey were other initiatives aimed at supporting green business opportunities.
In retrospect
On reflection, the past 12 months has seen strong affirmation of SBF as Singapore's apex business chamber:
The federation organised and supported 275 activities and programs in 2008 including seminars, workshops, overseas missions, dialogue, networking and business matching sessions benefitting more than 29,000 participants.
The wide coverage of interests provided members with clarity on policy issues as well as useful business updates and leads to pursue.
SBF led 10 and supported three other overseas missions to countries in North and South Asia, ASEAN, the Middle East and Latin America as part of its business facilitation efforts.
It received 49 business and official delegations from 22 countries including the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (better known as North Korea), Sri Lanka, Iran and Libya, amongst other countries with whom the SBF has developed rapport.
The business seminars, networking and business matching sessions that resulted from these inbound and outbound visits benefited close to 3,600 participants.
Collectively, these activities helped our members to tap into $340 million worth of deals.
As SBF embarks on its next phase of development, it will continue to sustain the wide reach of its members by continuing to offer relevant programmes and services. It will leverage its working relationship with counterpart business chambers locally and overseas to bring greater benefits to the Singapore business community.
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