Commentary

2016 is a special year for Singapore. While much of the SG50 Jubilee celebrations was spent reminiscing our economic miracle, SG51 marks our first chapter of a new tomorrow. As Singapore pushes ahead, we face a completely different set of challenges as compared to our pioneers.

Singapore's employment landscape is presently undergoing seismic changes, but the sectoral transformations exhorted are being driven more by need rather than by design. Against a backdrop of a slowing economy (2.1 percent in 2015 and expected to remain between 1 and 3 percent this year), high retrenchments in the service industries (4,600 redundancies in 1Q16 compared with 3,500 in 1Q15), and falling demand for manufactured goods, Singapore has had no choice but to review, redesign, and restructure its labour market in an attempt to galvanise employment stability in an unpredictable and volatile global market.

Almost every industry today is digitised. Most business functions are software-enabled. Around 40 percent of the world's population has an Internet connection. It comes as no surprise that 68 percent of Singapore’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will invest in their in-house technology and innovation capabilities, according to DP Information Group’s SME Development Survey. While this figure appears promising, the increase in technology adoption from a year ago was a mere 4 percent.

In recent years, Singapore's stock market has been a good place to lose money. But that might be about to change.

Here are five other factors that entrepreneurs should look at when deciding on where to place their hub in Asia Pacific.

According to a report released recently by Savills, a global real estate service provider, the Singapore property market has recorded its lowest quarterly investment sales since 2009. This information confirms a declining trend that was evident for the last two years.

Last April Facebook Messenger announced the introduction of chatbots, presenting a major opportunity for businesses in Singapore and beyond which are looking to connect with their customers on a more personal level. The move is designed to turn the instant messaging platform into a space where brands can become an intuitive part of their audiences' own conversations.

With the annual Singapore Maritime Week now a distant memory, it is worth reflecting on the health of the local Maritime sector. Agreed, 2016 hasn’t got off to a great start with Keppel announcing 2800 redundancies, a fire at a local oil storage facility, estimates of 40% of the bulk sector going under and, significantly for the local industry, Sete Brazil going bankrupt. All this on top of the 2015 sale of national shipping icon NOL/APL.

It's time for companies in Singapore to expand globally, according to the recent Budget 2016 announcement. An economic slowdown this year has the government predicting a small 1 to 3 percent growth. At that rate, Singapore businesses simply can't afford to keep their sights solely focused on the local market.

I live in Singapore but I also love spending time in Hong Kong and Shanghai. My business is global, and my fastest growing market is China and Hong Kong. I have found that people I visit and know tend to love one city over the others.

New share offerings by companies in Southeast Asia have been at a low this year. According to Dealogic, a financial analytics and technology firm, the amount raised in the region in the current year is just US$505 million, a fraction of the US$2.6 billion raised a year ago.

Achieving scale in tiny Singapore has long been a challenge for SMEs. Originating in a country with no domestic flights, Singaporean businesses must break out of their home markets at a much earlier stage than their larger-country peers. But acquiring such international chops can be a daunting prospect. In early 2016, AJA Enterprises finds itself wrestling with its own international tech-to-market strategy.

In February 2016 Singapore Airlines announced the acquisition of more than 90 percent ownership of Tiger Airways, a low cost carrier that was established by the company in late 2003 with a 49 percent stake – it was the major stakeholder.

The emergence of cutting-edge sectors such as life sciences and sports sciences and access to education programs of this nature will mean that companies have to reorganise themselves, engage with talent early, to meet both the challenges of the new competitive global economy and the needs of the future workforce.

Real estate prices rose by almost 80 percent in Singapore between 2008 and 2013. Alarmed by the rapid increase in values, the government took several measures to cool the overheated property market.

In the recent climate of fear due to a spate of retrenchments, the debate on unemployment insurance has intensified. However, unemployment insurance is not a new idea to Singapore as there have been previous attempts to run such plans.