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05
CCS ANNUAL REPORT 2015-2016
OVERVIEW
MR TOH HAN LI
Chief Executive
On 25 January 2016, over 42 high-level representatives
from the Community of Practice for Competition and
Economic Regulators (“COPCOMER”) agencies attended a
Tea Session and discussed the opportunities and risks of
a sharing economy. This topic was useful for COPCOMER
agencies to consider their approach to regulation in light
of the rise of sharing technologies (e.g. Uber & Airbnb),
particularly to maximise the opportunities brought about
by these technologies while mitigating the risks involved.
CCShasalsocompletedarevamptoouroutreachcollaterals.
The new set of collaterals consists of four booklets to
focus on helping our key stakeholders – businesses,
consumers and government agencies better understand
the Competition Act. In the same manner, our corporate
websitewasalsogivena facelift aspart of on-goingefforts
to improve information accessibility to the public.
As part of the regional and international competition
community, CCS plays its part to support the roll out and
implementationof competitionpolicyand lawin theASEAN
Economic Community.
CCShasplayedanactive role in theASEAN’sExpert Group
onCompetition (“AEGC”) since its inaugural chairmanship in
2008. CCS currently chairs the work group on developing
strategy and tools for regional competition advocacy.
We have developed a toolkit on strategies and tools for
regional competition advocacy, which was launched at
the2016 International CompetitionNetwork (“ICN”) Annual
Conference hosted by CCS.
Regional FreeTradeAgreements (“FTAs”) arean important
part of competitionarchitecture. In2015, the Trans-Pacific
Partnership(“TPP”)wasconcluded.Itinvolves12economies
– the United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada,
Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore
and Vietnam, and accounts for 793 million people, with a
combined GDP of US$28 trillion. CCS was involved in the
negotiations of theTPP’s competitionchapter. This, todate,
is themost comprehensive competitionpolicy chapter that
has been concluded in all the FTAs that Singapore has
signed with other economic partners.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
(“RCEP”) involves 10 ASEAN member states and six
of ASEAN’s dialogue partners – Australia, China, India,
Japan, New Zealand and South Korea – accounting
for a collective market of more than 3 billion people
and a combined GDP of about US$20 trillion. As chair
for the Working Group on Competition, we have made
good progress by concluding negotiations on certain
substantive provisions.
STRIVING FOR ORGANISATIONAL EXCELLENCE
CCS achieved the People Developer Award in September
2015. The award is recognition of CCS as a nurturing
organisation that invests in our people, systems, and
processes to achieve organisational effectiveness. CCS
also achieved industry leading employee engagement
resultswhencomparedagainst benchmarks in thebiennial
Employee Engagement Survey.
To further strengthen the management team and as part
of leadership renewal, three of CCS’s Deputy Directors
have been promoted to Director level appointmentswhile
the incumbent Director (Legal & Enforcement) ended his
secondment with CCS. The new Directors will head the
Legal Division, Enforcement Division and the Research
and Publication Unit (“RPU”).
The RPU is formed to provide strategic direction to CCS’s
economicandlegalresearchefforts,aswellastocoordinate
these efforts internally and externally to encourage
the advancement of understanding and awareness of
competition matters in Singapore and ASEAN. The RPU
seeks todevelopastrong researchculture for CCSofficers
to build deep expertise and to provide thought leadership
on topics like competition economics and policy and law.
In this regard, CCS officers have published five research
papers in FY 2015 on topics of competition economics
and policies.
TheStrategicPlanningDivisionhas also been renamed as
the International andStrategic PlanningDivision. This is in
line with CCS expanding its international linkages as well
as supporting the ASEAN Economic Community through
competition policy and law.
CCSiscommittedtoensuringthatmarketsworkwellforboth
businessesandconsumers inSingapore. CCSwill continue
to strengthen capacities and competencies, and facilitate
regional cooperation to help companies in Singapore deal
effectively with the changing business environment.