WHILE Professor Ivan Png's statement that the Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) is like a subsidy to get fat people to exercise is probably apt, there is no simple way to get obese people to exercise ("PIC: Move from subsidy to root cause"; Tuesday).
If education is all it takes to motivate a person to keep fit, there will be significantly fewer obese people in the world. The obese individual has to find in himself a deep reason to embark on the weight loss journey.
Similarly, for corporate entities, it cannot be said that "dishing out" subsidies to small and medium-sized enterprises for productivity and innovation will not help. After all, corporate entities are money-driven. Money is at the root of a corporate entity. And subsidies will motivate corporate entities.
The problem is not the carrot used to encourage productivity and innovation.
Productivity and innovation are not a panacea. I have spoken with many fellow small-business owners during my course of work and a common message emerges: Raising productivity and innovation is not going to be enough to offset the tight labour market, increasing rentals and declining population growth.
Goh Eck Hong
If education is all it takes to motivate a person to keep fit, there will be significantly fewer obese people in the world. The obese individual has to find in himself a deep reason to embark on the weight loss journey.
Similarly, for corporate entities, it cannot be said that "dishing out" subsidies to small and medium-sized enterprises for productivity and innovation will not help. After all, corporate entities are money-driven. Money is at the root of a corporate entity. And subsidies will motivate corporate entities.
The problem is not the carrot used to encourage productivity and innovation.
Productivity and innovation are not a panacea. I have spoken with many fellow small-business owners during my course of work and a common message emerges: Raising productivity and innovation is not going to be enough to offset the tight labour market, increasing rentals and declining population growth.
Goh Eck Hong
