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GP Model Essay – How important are small businesses to your society? Here are some excerpts which you can use for this essay question.   According to Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Mr Teo Ser Luck, “The SME sector is an important pillar of Singapore’s economy. They contribute more than 50 per cent of economic output and 70 per cent of employment”. As such, SMEs have been encouraged by the government to invest in skills upgrading, innovation and to utilise various schemes available to step up on productivity.    This has also been reiterated by DPM Tharman in his address at the Singapore Metal & Machinery Association on 25 April 2015. He said that SMEs are at the core of Singapore’s economy and sources of innovation and future growth. T ...

For this essay question, it would be useful to consider the example of the East Asia Emergency Rice Reserve for the following points (source): Agricultural prices are volatile and this threatens food security in developing countries In 2008, due to the high prices of rice, the leaders in this region committed to building up a stockpile of reserves to hedge against fluctuating commodity prices Nevertheless, while there is some political consensus amongst the 13 countries which have been involved, there are many hurdles which exist that hinder the stockpiling efforts While this scheme has been in place for about 30 years, this has never been used and is still at the pilot stage Hence you can use this example to support your argument that food security is an increasingly pressing issue whereb ...