Singapore announces S$19bn innovation budget

By Joshua Chambers

Spending US$13bn over the next five years.

Singapore has announced a five-year research plan to spend US$13 billion on future transport systems, healthcare, advanced manufacturing and academic research.

The Research, Innovation and Enterprise Plan 2020 commits to spend US$0.6 billion on future transport options, such as driverless cars. It will also research urban mobility systems, using big data analytics to help autonomous vehicles avoid traffic jams.

It will spend billions on advanced manufacturing in eight key industries, including aerospace, marine, medical technology, precision engineering and satellites.
The largest slice of the budget will be spent on healthcare - US$2.77 billion, looking to improve treatment of cancer, further biomedical research and hospital systems.

The budget also saw commitment of further research into cyber security.

Public sector research spending makes up 1% of Singapore’s GDP, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said at the launch of the plan. He said that over 40% of the budget would require competition to receive investment.