I REFER to the remarks by National Research Foundation (NRF) chairman Tony Tan ("The Next Big Thing in high-tech is actually small"; ST, Nov 28).

He said NRF is looking at new initiatives to support innovation and enterprise and that Singapore "lacks the small, innovative high-tech start-ups needed to complete the mix".

The Government has various schemes to assist small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs are defined by the size of capital and assets. However, such assistance is not available to SMEs which are subsidiaries of parent companies whose size is outside of the definition of SME.

I presume the assumption for such exclusion is that such SMEs can call on the support of their respective parents. Such an assumption is not always correct, and go against the concept of intrapreneurship.

Intrapreneurship is quite prevalent in the United States and Europe, where corporations are willing to fund employees who have good business ideas, and set up subsidiaries where they can exploit their ideas freely.

Such intrapreneur subsidiaries are then often left to thrive or fail on their own merit without any further financial support from their parents.

Being not eligible for government assistance, such intrapreneur SMEs in Singapore would be placed at a disadvantage compared to other SMEs set up by individual entrepreneurs or funded by venture capitalists.

I suggest that the Government relax the rules governing assistance to SMEs, and level the playing field for all SMEs in Singapore, irrespective of their parentage.

As a start, perhaps eligibility should apply for SMEs which are not in the same line of business as their parent companies.

Loke Yue Chong

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