R&D in Singapore will get a government-funding boost. The country's National Research Fund will get an extra $1 billion in its budget for the coming year. That's on top of a $1.5 billion addition to the $5 billion fund last year. The fund has backed cancer research, as well as R&D in other industries.
What's more, the government is aiming to increase the private sector's share of R&D funding. Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said during a speech that Singapore would be allocating more funding to "[support] private-sector R&D activity and commercialization," the Straits Times reports.
The government is investing in R&D in hopes of developing a "broader base of innovative enterprises" in the Singapore economy, Shanmugaratnam said. It's hoping it can leverage public R&D funding into bigger research investments from the private sector, with a long-term goal of boosting research to 3.5 percent of GDP from its current 3 percent.
- read the Straits Times story