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First, Kenneth Tiong looked at the Fortune Global 500 and found only three Singapore companies on the list.
Then he turned to R&D, looked for a billion-dollar champion and couldn't find one.
“After decades and tens of billions, not one local R&D champion has emerged worth more than a billion dollars.”
Looking for a billion-dollar R&D company is the wrong KPI.
It's akin to saying: “I've spent billions on education. Where's my billion-dollar school?”
Spending on education can produce better-educated workers, researchers, entrepreneurs and a more productive economy.
You wouldn't demand that the ultimate proof of educational success be the emergence of a billion-dollar school.
So, what is the policy intent of our R&D investments?
This was clearly articulated by Dr Tan See Leng in Parliament earlier this year.
R&D policy, as Dr Tan said, can have commercial objectives.
But the strategy is about building long-term strategic capabilities across the economy so that Singapore can not just keep pace, but stay ahead.
What have we achieved thus far?
Data shared in Parliament reveals the following:
From 2016 to 2023, annual business expenditure on R&D grew at a 7.8% CAGR to reach around S$9 billion.
The number of private-sector R&D firms grew by 33% to more than 1,000.
Value-add from R&D firms increased by 142%, while value-add per worker rose by 110%.
Private-sector R&D employment increased by 36% to more than 30,000, with more than 70% of those jobs filled by locals.
And ASTAR and Singapore's Institutes of Higher Learning have spun off more than 300 companies, while hundreds of SMEs and startups have licensed ASTAR-originated technologies.
Singapore's progress in semiconductors, biomedical sciences, advanced manufacturing and other technologically intensive sectors cannot be reduced to whether one Singapore-owned R&D company has crossed a billion dollar valuation threshold.
If a multinational develops new technology in Singapore, employs Singaporean researchers, works with our universities and suppliers, trains local talent and transfers knowledge into the wider economy, that is an economic outcome — even if the parent company is not Singaporean.
We don't have to measure the success of our R&D strategy by the number of billion-dollar companies it produces.
We can have many champions — across different sectors, technologies and parts of the economy.
Today, R&D accounts for a massive $32.1 billion in annual revenue generated.
Singapore is one of the most innovative countries in the world, ranking in the top 10 in the Global Innovation Index and Bloomberg Innovation Index.
