Services 2030 strategy to help Singapore grow modern services, create 100,000 new jobs

SINGAPORE aims to grow the value-added (VA) from “modern services” by at least 50 per cent and create more than 100,000 additional jobs within this decade, Trade and Industry Minister Gan Kim Yong said at his ministry’s Committee of Supply debate on Tuesday (Feb 28).

This is under the new Services 2030 strategy, one of the pillars of the Singapore Economy 2030 vision alongside the Manufacturing 2030 and Trade 2030 strategies.

As part of the strategy, the Professional Services Industry Transformation Map (ITM) 2025 was launched on Tuesday. It covers a diverse group that includes company headquarters as well as professional services firms that provide consulting, legal and accounting services.

Professional services is one of three industries under the modern services cluster, with the other two being financial services as well as infocomm technology and media.

The new ITM will play an important role in strengthening Singapore’s role as a leading business hub, said Gan. “Our professional services sector is well-positioned to seize opportunities for business growth driven by digitalisation, sustainability, emerging markets, and new customer segments in South-east Asia.”

“The government will work with stakeholders to help Singaporeans upskill and reskill, so that they too can tap on opportunities and realise their career aspirations in this sector,” he added.

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This is one of 23 maps that the government has rolled out since 2016 to support industry transformation. Responding to Members of Parliament who asked how these ITMs have fared, Gan said that they have led the way in growth and transformation, although the pandemic “inevitably affected progress”.

Between 2016 and 2021, the 23 ITM sectors saw their VA in real terms grow by 2.9 per cent per annum, with productivity growing at 4 per cent per annum, said Gan. This was higher than the economy-wide growth rates of 2.8 per cent for VA and 3.5 per cent for productivity.

There was also net creation of about 134,000 resident jobs from 2016 to 2021, despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, said Gan.

In that period, the financial services sector was among the best performing, with real VA growth of 6.8 per cent per annum and net creation of close to 26,000 jobs for professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs). This was better than the targets of 4.3 per cent for real VA growth and 12,000 jobs.

Precision engineering, however, missed the mark for job creation due to the pandemic-led downturn, with over 2,000 net PMET jobs created, short of the target of 3,000. Still, its VA growth reached 11.2 per cent per annum, exceeding the target of 8 per cent.

While the pandemic has “disrupted the progress” of the ITMs, Singapore has since refreshed the maps for 2025, to address issues such as sustainability and resilience. Said Gan: “We should allow some time for these strategies to take root before assessing progress of the ITM 2025 strategies.”