The Singapore government on Thursday announced a five-year management training program for local small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) leaders.

The Singapore Standards, Productivity and Innovation Board ( SPRING Singapore), the champion of SMEs, is setting aside 20 million Singapore dollars (about 13 million U.S. dollars) over the next 5 years to help three tertiary institutions to develop customized executive master of business administration (EMBA) and executive development courses to train SMEs chief executive officers (CEO).

Lee Yi Shyan, Minister of State for Trade and Industry, announced the scheme at an enterprise conference, saying the speed of learning in an organization depends on the learning speed of the CEO himself or herself.

These customized courses, with the first intakes planned for July, will contain modules that will specifically address the needs of SMEs, such as financial management and technology management, said Lee.

The duration of the courses is also flexible, ranging from one to two weeks every few months to longer term studies, to suit the busy schedules of the SME leaders.

The SPRING hopes to see 1,000 SME CEOs and their key managers coming through the management development program over the five- year period.

According to the SPRING, Singapore has about 130,000 SMEs, those with 15 million Singapore dollars (about 9.8 million U.S. dollars) or less in fixed asset investment and, for non- manufacturing enterprises, 200 or fewer employees.

SMEs form an important pillar of the city-state's economy, employing 56 percent of workforce and contributing 42 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP).