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Think of Singapore and you might think of a bustling financial center.
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Major manufacturing hub.
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Thriving technology haven.
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But when the coronavirus hit in early 2020, that image came to a standstill.
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Singapore, like much of the world, was sucked into the throes of the pandemic,
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forcing businesses to shutter and life to go on hold.
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Staying closed was not an option for long, though.
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As the Asia Pacific headquarters for many major corporations,
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ensuring business continuity is critical.
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I'm taking a look at how key industries are supporting that drive to revive the economy.
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Even before the pandemic hit Singapore shores, the Southeast Asian island nation was positioning
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itself as a strategic business hub, in a world increasingly fraught
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with trade tensions and supply chain concerns.
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But when a spike in Covid-19 cases led the country into an eight-week lockdown,
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authorities moved quickly to cushion the impact, unveiling more than $73 billion in stimulus
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as the country weathered its first recession since 2009.
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Although the crisis hit the country hard, it has presented opportunities for manufacturing
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and services firms, which are key components of Singapore's economy.
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In 2019, the manufacturing sector alone contributed 20.9% of Singapore's nominal GDP.
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The services industry, which includes sectors such as business, information and communications,
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finance and insurance, made up close to 70%.
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At the height of the pandemic, manufacturing was the only sector to grow,
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led by demand for biomedical goods.
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Multinational manufacturer 3M was among the companies to lead response efforts,
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turning its manufacturing lines 24/7 and doubling its global production of N95 respirators.
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We were able to leverage learnings from SARS.
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And so, we made the conscious decision to invest in additional capacity
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in preparation for the next pandemic.
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In having that, it helped us a tremendous amount, to be able to respond very quickly.
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In the first half of the year, the company produced over 800 million respirators globally,
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including from its plant in Singapore, which was in the crosshairs
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of a White House administration trying to prioritize supplies for the U.S. market.
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During that period, Malaysia closed its borders due to the pandemic,
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affecting 3M's Malaysian workers who commuted daily to Singapore.
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The company had to work closely with Singaporean authorities to temporarily rehouse
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its Malaysian staff in Singapore, as the border closure threatened to affect output.
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With the movement control order circuit breaker, we had some of them make the conscious decision
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– which again, I think shows how our employees have stepped up – to say,
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'I'm going to stay away from my home and my family and live in a hotel.'
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And they've been living in a hotel since late-March and they're still here,
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helping to keep our operations running.
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As the economy reels from the pandemic, central banks have been working with private lenders
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such as banks to roll out support.
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That includes measures to ease cash flow constraints for the thousands of
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small and medium-sized businesses, or SMEs, in the country.
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As with any economy, you'll find the SMEs are always the foundation,
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the bedrock, of every economy.
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They, first and foremost, are responsible for a lot of the economic activities
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of a country, and therefore they also employ many people.
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SMEs account for 99% of businesses in Singapore and 72% of the workforce.
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During the peak of the outbreak, DBS — Southeast Asia's largest bank — provided $3.5 billion
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in temporary bridging loans to keep many of them going,
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with an emphasis on vulnerable, micro-enterprises.
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So all in all, about 8,600 loans have been approved, about $4.9 billion,
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of which about 7,500 loans — about S$2 billion — are for the micro and smaller SMEs.
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The shifting economic landscape has also led many businesses to quickly adapt to new ways
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of working, including moving much of their operations online.
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That's something Microsoft has been helping with from its Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore,
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through its products such as Azure cloud computing and Microsoft Teams.
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We've seen two years of digital transformation in two months as a result of Covid.
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While these developments happened out of necessity, Singapore has been investing heavily
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in digitization efforts in the public and private sectors for years.
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Accelerating the digitalization of these SMEs could lead to a faster economic recovery.
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A recent survey of more than 1,400 SMEs in Asia Pacific found that many companies
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are still in the early stages of their digital transformation or indifferent to it.
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It is estimated that by 2024, the digital transformation
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of small and medium-sized businesses in Asia Pacific could add $2.6 trillion
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to $3.1 trillion to the region's GDP — and that was before the pandemic.
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I think across every industry we have seen a shift of focus.
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In some cases, it might be more in keeping their data secure and getting it to the cloud.
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In others, it may be more around collaborating and how do they keep
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their employees and their customers connected?
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And then in others, it's fundamental changes in their business models
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so that they can actually prepare for the future.
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And I don't think they will go back.
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It's not just companies rebuilding for a new digital economy, either.
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Those fundamental changes have also altered people's behaviors, prompting many of them
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to look for new ways of conducting personal and professional business.
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That means businesses have to empower employees to find new ways of working.
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Teams usage went up by 500%, so just to show you the amount of
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dependency for people to be able to continue to work together, it's huge.
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And we've really had to work hard to get these things deployed quickly.
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In some cases, over the course of 48 hours.
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For DBS, that was a case of expanding its digital banking system to enable more people
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to manage their finances remotely.
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I have seen a 30% year-on-year increase in digibank adoption.
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And as we look into the profiles of those, a reasonable percentage of those
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were actually our senior citizens, 62 years and above.
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So that has certainly changed.
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The bank now has 3.4 million digital users, 29% of whom conduct their finances entirely online,
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which it says indicates the transition toward a new economic landscape.
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As we speak, we have about a million customers who are completely digital.
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So, we can see that actually the foundation has been built.
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This time was actually quite necessary or helpful to shift behaviors.
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And actually, those behavioral shifts were quite natural and quite automatic.
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But the work for businesses adapting in a new normal doesn't quite end there.
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As Singapore's economy embarks on a path of recovery, companies also have an important
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social role to play in bringing the community along with them.
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We are going to have to be so agile and continue to work with local experts and government
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to understand what is changing in the landscape.
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Working with other multinationals, working with small and medium-sized enterprises to
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really glean information that we can pull together and take action.
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For Microsoft, that's a matter of using its pool of employment data, from its products
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such as networking service LinkedIn, to help ready citizens for a new future.
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The company has already pledged to provide free training to 25 million people this year,
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to equip them with in-demand digital skills.
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Ultimately, what we are trying to do is support people by identifying trends and knowing where
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the next generation of roles and jobs will be.
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Helping them to skill up in order to be ready for that.
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And then helping them to make sure that they can find those roles and they can navigate
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and be able to source what's next for them.
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That plays into the bigger role of multinationals within society, according to DBS, which aims
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to bring about more creative solutions in areas beyond its traditional remit.
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That includes community projects, such as sourcing food from struggling F&B businesses
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to provide 700,000 free meals to those in need.
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It's one of several initiatives born out of a $7.6 million DBS Stronger Together Fund.
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You can do community service, which is important.
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But if we can also bring together, like in my case, I brought my SME customers along,
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supported them while feeding those who needed to be fed, while rallying our people and our
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customers and members of the public, to kind of, fulfill this purpose.
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So this actually goes back to our DNA, right.
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The reason we were started 50-odd years ago was to facilitate the development of Singapore.
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So we started being called the Development Bank of Singapore.
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So, as we play this important part, right, in the whole development of Singapore
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from the third world to the first, what next?
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I think this purpose continues to be in our DNA.