Singapore's Sports Vision 2010 on Track

Singapore's Sports Vision 2010 on Track

The Singapore Sports Council (SSC) revealed today that the sporting fraternity is making good progress in its journey towards Singapore's sports vision 2010, set out by the Committee on Sporting Singapore (CoSS) in 2001.

At a press conference to release its annual report, the SSC gave an overview of the sporting fraternity's achievements over the last five years and revealed that it would be focusing on building strong partnerships and collaborations going forward.

Speaking at the press conference, SSC Chairman Alex Chan said: "Five years ago, we began laying the fundamental building blocks for a thriving, sustainable sports culture in Singapore. We have witnessed high-level breakthroughs in policies, mindset changes and initiatives, particularly in the key areas of government support for sports, sports management and sports industry/business development. We are making good progress in our journey towards 2010 as seen through encouraging results in sports participation, excellence and industry over the last five years."

Half time achievements for the targets set by the CoSS for sports participation, excellence and industry have revealed encouraging results. Singapore achieved a 48 percent sports participation rate in 2005 just two percentage points shy of the 50 percent 2005 target set by the CoSS (refer to Annex). Singapore's latest performances at major games - Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and South East Asian Games have also shown promising results (refer to Annex) indicating that Singapore is on track to be one of Asia's top 10 sporting nations by the 2010 Asian Games. GDP contribution for the sports industry stood at $696 million in 2004.

"While the half way results for the targets set by the CoSS in sports participation, excellence and industry are encouraging, what's important is the progress we've made through the 40 recommendations supporting these targets. More importantly, how we evolve and refine our strategies to keep up with the times will be critical going forward. And although the transformation to becoming a recognised sporting nation is far from complete, we can all feel good about what we have achieved so far," added Chan.

Looking ahead, SSC's CEO Oon Jin Teik said: "The months and years ahead will be seen as the turning point in our nation's sporting history. As you are aware, the Sporting Culture Committee has just been formed to map out Sporting Singapore's strategies going forward and to see how we can focus more on the software aspects of our strategy. This can only happen through the collective expertise, dedication and efforts of all key sports partners - especially the National Sports Associations (NSAs), coaches, athletes, government agencies, sponsors and other sports business players who will play a critical important role in co-driving value creation for sports in Singapore. In line with this, the SSC has will see how it can further strengthen partnerships and collaborations with its sports partners in the coming years."

SSC will be rolling out two major initiatives this fiscal year.

Integrated Events Strategy

The SSC is developing an integrated events strategy that will provide a long-term, systematic approach to bidding and staging sports events in Singapore. The aim is to help sports partners extract maximum value in sports participation, excellence and industry, from sports events that Singapore brings in. The long planning horizon of between 10 to 20 years allows all sports partners to take a holistic long-term view of their plans to see how they can derive maximum value from the event. SSC will be seeking feedback from all sports partners on this initiative within the next few months. A set of guidelines to align and guide all parties to put in place a rigorous events planning process is expected to be ready by the first quarter of 2007.

Said Oon: "This framework will help to put all sports partners on the same page, right from the start and agreeing how a sports event can contribute meaningfully to participation, excellence and industry over the long haul instead of over a year or worst still, on an ad hoc basis. With this systematic approach, we will be able to allocate limited resources more effectively and eventually establish a unique value proposition for Singapore as the sports events destination in Asia and a preferred location for international and regional sports federations. We can look forward to a wider variety of exciting sports events coming to our shores for a longer period of time, which actively and simultaneously promote participation, excellence and industry. We look forward to getting feedback from our partners on how to best operationalise this strategy to all parties' benefit. "

Strengthening Integration of Sports Participation and Excellence Programmes for Children & Youth

SSC will be strengthening the integration of sports participation and excellence programmes for children and youths in the coming years. The aim is to ensure Singapore maximises its sporting talent pool amongst children and youths who form the base for future potential sports champions and to promote an active sports culture amongst the young. This initiative will see SSC working closely with key sports partners including NSAs, education institutions, the Co-Curricular Activities Branch (CCAB) of the Ministry of Education, and sports service providers to engage children/youth, identify talent and map out a pathway during their formative years starting from developing motor skills, to learning a sport early, participating in it actively throughout his/her teenage years and eventually channelling him/her into the sports excellence pathway. SSC has started and will continue to engage its partners over the next few months to get feedback on this initiative. It will come up with identified pathways for a few sports in the first quarter of 2007 to pilot test this concept. It will also launch programmes in the coming months to encourage youths to participate in sports.

In line with SSC's focus on strengthening and integrating sports participation and excellence programmes for children and youth, the SSC has set up a Youth Sport Development Division. "Currently, sports participation and excellence programmes undertaken by sports partners in the children and youth age groups are not strongly linked. This presents an opportunity for us to develop a larger pool of sports talents as we create more opportunities and encourage more children and youth to play sport, to play it longer, and to play it better along the athlete development pathway," added Oon.

Enclosures
Sports Participation Rate and Major Games Medal Tally & Ranking