Singapore is developing new standards to facilitate the sustainability and resilience of its businesses in a post-coronavirus economy.
The new industry standards are set to help companies operate in areas such as business continuity and supply chains, healthcare solutions, and infrastructure development, said Enterprise Singapore (ESG) and the Singapore Standards Council (SSC).
SSC was set up by ESG and both agencies have developed and reviewed over 168 standards and technical references affecting 13,000 organisations over the last year.
Around 90 of these standards are new and around 70% of them focus on areas such as smart manufacturing to support the adoption of Industry 4.0.
“In 2020, green standards encompassing renewables, energy efficiency and storage will be developed to support Singapore’s shift to a low carbon future,” said SSC.
Singapore is also planning to launch standards for areas such as biometrics and even air conditioning, which have been identified as ways to strengthen business resilience and “emerge stronger from the pandemic”.
The SSC said coronavirus had reinforced the importance of standards that focus on resilience for businesses to adapt quickly to disruptions.
“It has also emphasised the importance of the need for resource sustainability... The SSC will develop standards on business continuity and supply chain, ICT and infrastructure, and healthcare solutions to enhance resilience in enterprises,” it said.
ESG director-general Choy Sauw Kook said standards has been tweaked to “incorporate some of these things that floated up through Covid-19, in addition to some of the other areas that we had planned for before Covid-19”.
He added: “Standards also keep Singapore connected with the rest of the world.”
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