After banning Airbnb and placing more regulatory restrictions on Uber and Grab, the Singapore government committee, Committee on the Future Economy (CFE), announced that the country should resist protectionism and liberalise trade and investments.
“Given the mood against globalisation, we must both resist protectionism and move beyond trade liberalisation to deepen linkages with our overseas partners and seize opportunities in new markets.”
The CFE also said that Singapore should send more students to overseas exchange to “promote entrepreneurship”:
“Set up a Global Innovation Alliance where Singapore’s institutes of higher learning and companies link up with overseas partners to promote innovation. At the National University of Singapore, students are already being sent to places such as Silicon Valley, Israel and Beijing under the Overseas College programme to hone their entrepreneurial spirit.”
The government committee also called for a new one-stop portal to help overseas Singaporeans return to Singapore. Overseas Singaporeans are told to consider placing their children under the Singapore education system instead of overseas:
“We can also do better to ease the concerns of Singaporean parents who are on, or thinking about taking on, overseas assignments, about their children’s education.”