Enterprise Singapore

Good afternoon, I'm Joshua Wong and these are your news headlines.

Enterprise Singapore will invest up to $120 million over five years to help small and medium-sized businesses develop new products.

The agency will also reduce its network of centres of innovation from 27 to 10, making support more accessible.

Technology advisory provider IPI will be wound down by March 31 next year, with its services integrated into the centres.

The restructuring will affect staff, although numbers have not been disclosed.

Enterprise Singapore says it will prioritise redeployment for affected employees, including opportunities within the public service and innovation sector.

Restaurant group Crystal Jade has closed four more outlets in Singapore and issued termination notices to about 120 employees ahead of a proposed sale of the business.

Three Lamian Xiaolongbao outlets at Bookish Junction, Topayo and I Want to Cutong closed on Tuesday, along with Crystal Jade Go in Punggol.

Our patent on Masterkey was granted in the US in January.

We were selected by the Singapore government, Enterprise Singapore, in the top 60 deep tech startups worldwide in October.

And this product is released about three days ago.

So I'm actually super proud of it.

The launch earlier today, which was officiated by Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry Luo Yanling at the inaugural Future Ready Business in Action 2026 event, is part of the wider Future Ready Business platform.

The Future Ready Business Index, developed with Boston Consulting Group, and delivered in partnership with DBS, Enterprise Singapore and RSM Singapore, looks at 11 qualitative measures and 39 qualitative metrics with rubrics with specific descriptors for more objectivity.

It is a business readiness check that looks at six key dimensions, which includes characteristics such as business performance, including strategy and financial strength, readiness for international growth, the use of technology, including their data infrastructure and cybersecurity preparedness, among others.

Meanwhile, overseas, over in Vietnam, Vietnamese stocks were added to the FTSE Russell Emerging Market Indices today, marking a milestone for the country's stock market after years of reforms aimed at attracting foreign investors.

That should moderate, it should normalise in the coming months.

But recently, there was an article stating that Enterprise Singapore, they upgraded their forecast of non-oil domestic exports to Nodex to 16% for this year.

So it's a very commendable level.

And this is largely on the back of the ongoing AI build-out, as we know Singapore partakes in that, as well as broadening of the sector participation in exports.

And they've since been relaxed.

In fact, if you were to talk to the MAS, you talk to Enterprise Singapore, you talk to anybody, they all try and say like, no, no, we're a disclosure-based regime, you know? But the scar tissue and the PTSD is there.

And so what we need to do is we need to just just kind of fly jacket wheel.

That's why the EQDP, the Equity Capital Development Program is being done and a lot of excitement.