Home In the News BT, SPRING And IE Announces New Magazine for SMEs

BT, SPRING And IE Announces New Magazine for SMEs

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It’s been announced that a new magazine that focuses on the needs of Singapore’s small and medium-sized businesses will be hitting the streets, and which is touted as a “must-read” for business leaders seeking to operate more effectively in new markets.

A collaboration between The Business Times, SPRING Singapore and IE Singapore (which pretty much means that the two agencies will underwrite part, if not most, of its cost), the imaginatively titled The SME Magazine will provide “news, stories and information to help Singapore’s homegrown companies grow, expand and globalize with higher value-added products and services”.

It’s about time. After all, small and medium businesses make up 99 percent of all businesses incorporated in Singapore and form the backbone of the country’s economy. It is responsible for about half of the country’s GDP and generates more than 60 percent of jobs found in Singapore (more statistics here).

Also, there’s a recent dearth of good local publications that focuses on the small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) market. Independent SME magazine BOLDLEAPS, launched in August 2007, died just after four issues, while ASME (Association of Small & Medium Enterprises) magazine Entrepreneur Digest, which is still around, can only be politely called a vanity magazine.

At least The Business Times has competent journalists who can be trusted to do a good job on the new rag. I’m interested to see what kind of focus, if any, the magazine will have on the startup scene, however.

The SME Magazine, priced at S$6 per copy, is available at all major news stands and bookstores.

4 COMMENTS

  1. I had a complimentary copy delivered to our organization since it was launched. I would say the content is just so-so but they do have a lot of advise directly from IE and Spring which I guess could be pretty useful for those who do not know about the services they offer.

    I think it’s more of a platform for IE and Spring to reach out to the entrepreneurs and the SME people who are not fully aware of all the services available to them.

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