Economic Strategy Review: Global Competitiveness Committee — AI reshapes the economy

The Economic Strategy Review is Singapore's plan for the next phase of its economy. Committee members say the conditions that powered decades of success have fundamentally shifted: the free trade order has disappeared and AI is rewriting both the economy and society. Singapore's small size becomes an advantage — it can try new things and move quickly.

ESR Committee 1 is sharpening tools to anchor and grow what it calls emerging champions: locally based companies with potential to become the MNCs of the future. The SATs leadership shared how it sends Singaporeans abroad and brings global talent in. The country's pitch to multinationals rests on rule of law, execution capability, and the trust that data, tech stacks and IP held in Singapore stay protected.

Caption language: en · Fetched: 2026-05-02

The ESR is essentially a [music] plan for our economy. It affects everybody's [music] lives. The circumstances and the environment that has enabled Singapore to succeed for many, many years has changed fundamentally. [music] The world of free trade has disappeared. >> How can we reposition [music] ourselves to really create a differentiating value proposition for Singapore, [music] Singapore's economy, and Singaporeans? I think we can see how AI is going to be fundamentally [music] a force that will change both the economy and also society. >> And it looks like this could be [music] challenges for Singapore. But being small has it advantages because we are able to try new things. We're able to move very quickly. >> We've been [music] doing this for many years. Preparing Singaporeans for a very different future.

[music] We're looking at how we can really develop recommendations [music] to anchor and grow a new generation of what we call globally leading businesses from Singapore. >> What's our [music] core strength? >> What do large MNC's need? They want reliable institutions that have a rule of law and that have the ability to execute. [music] >> And Singapore offers all these conditions because we are a trusted hub. People like to come here and live here and work here and we can be a place where you can operate in the sustainable [music] fashion. The trust comes in as to who's going to manage your data, who's going to manage your tech stack, can we trust the country where this is actually happening to be able to protect our IP. [music] Nobody questions Singapore when it comes to these things.

The ESR committee one [music] have been looking at how we can better support and also attract what we call the [music] emerging champions. >> The next phase of growth will be driven by companies that are based here that have the potential to be the MNC's of the [music] future. >> We have to encourage our companies to spread the brains abroad. >> We have the cultural knowhow [music] to navigate the growth opportunities in Southeast Asia and anchor our headquarters here based in Singapore. [music] I'm in a very privileged position to be leading SATs. Just getting everyone [music] including the workers here to think broadly and globally. That has been a tremendous journey. We're now able to send Singaporeans [music] overseas to learn how to operate in different environments.

We're able to bring global talents [music] into Singapore to share what they see elsewhere and learn from that. The ESR committee 1 has spent a lot of time thinking about how we can [music] refine current programs and initiative so that we can better support our Singapore companies to expand into regional and global markets and help them to compete [music] better on the global stage. Companies that are at the leading edge [music] of new industries, companies that are fast growing, companies that are driven by [music] people with talent, people who are going to create new things and become the future big companies. >> We need to have the [music] ambition and the risk-taking ability to start pointing towards our play field, which is the rest of the world.

>> As a people, we've [music] always been able to adapt to change and adapt faster than anybody else. And the only way we can future proof ourself is really to [music] understand our interests, our passion, our innate talent. [music] >> I think we're going to get a country where our citizens are confident, our citizens know what they want. >> Singaporeans [music] today, we have a lot more in terms of what we can do and we have a lot more in terms of who we are. This [music] is a blessing for us. We are in a good position to be able to succeed in a very different [music] world.