13 new members appointed to Future Economy Council

THE Future Economy Council (FEC) unveiled 13 newly appointed members at the first meeting of its new term on Friday.

The council's other 20 existing members have been re-appointed for the new term (Sept 1, 2018 to May 31, 2020). The members of the FEC include representatives from the government, unions, trade associations and chambers, industry, and educational and training institutions.

Chaired by Minister for Finance Heng Swee Keat, the FEC drives the growth and transformation of Singapore's economy for the future and oversees the implementation of the recommendations put forth by the Committee on the Future Economy (CFE), such as the development and implementation of the Industry Transformation Maps (ITMs).

The 13 new members are:

Of the 13 new members, Ms Rajah, Mr Lee and Mr Ng are from Singapore's fourth-generation leadership.

Mr Heng said the new members are part of a renewal process, to bring about "fresh perspectives" for the next phase of industry transformation: "They come from a range of industries...companies of different sizes, and we also have members from the business chambers and unions."

"I think by gathering the different perspectives from all the different sectors, we can bring to bear the knowledge of everybody so we can all work closely together to help our businesses transform, and our workers gain new skills." 

Established in 2017, the FEC brought together key stakeholders in the economy to marshal broad-based support for industry transformation, forge tripartite partnerships and launch ITMs for 23 industries.

The latest of the ITMs was launched on March 7, 2018 but implementation of the ITMs is ongoing.

In its next phase of work, the FEC will also continue to work with tripartite partners to make them accessible to more businesses, in particular small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and workers. It will also work towards a more cluster-based approach to reap synergies and strengthen linkages across multiple industries, and explore new opportunities.

In addition to the implementation of the ITMs, the FEC will continue to oversee efforts to drive skills upgrading so that workers are also ready for the opportunities available as industries undergo transformation.