Dr Loo Choon Yong, Chairman of JTC,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

Good morning. I am pleased to join you today at the groundbreaking of JTC Space @ Tuas, the first-of-its-kind integrated facility that aims to enhance the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector in Singapore.

 

 

The manufacturing sector has been and will remain a key pillar of Singapore’s economy. There are three key reasons for this.

First, manufacturing is a key engine of economic growth. It contributed close to 20% of our GDP in 2013 – or about S$71.5 billion in value added. It also generates spin-offs to other industries, such as transport, corporate finance, construction and business services, and contributes to their growth. 

Second, a strong manufacturing sector improves our economic resilience, as seen during the earlier periods of global economic downturn. In 2002, after the 2001 dotcom crisis, the manufacturing sector grew by 8.4%, compared with the overall economic growth of 4.2%. In 2010, the manufacturing sector again accelerated our recovery from the global financial crisis. It grew by 29.7%, when the overall economy grew 14.8%.

Third, the manufacturing sector provides good jobs for many Singaporeans. In 2014, it employed 250,000 locals. About 60% of them were professionals, managers, executives or technicians. Looking ahead, the manufacturing sector will continue to offer good prospects for Singaporeans, as it underpins the transformation of our economy into a knowledge-based and skills-intensive one. EDB’s Future of Manufacturing initiative will position Singapore as a major global hub for advanced manufacturing. We will help companies adopt and develop cutting-edge technologies and solutions, and move up the value chain. This will generate exciting job opportunities for Singaporeans – jobs that require Singaporeans to develop specialised skills and inter-disciplinary knowledge.

 

The Government is committed to strengthening the competitiveness of our manufacturing sector. We will continue to develop key growth industries such as Electronics, Biomedical Sciences, Precision Engineering, Transport Engineering, Chemicals and Oil and Gas. The growth of these industries will also generate demand and create growth opportunities for supporting industries and companies along the value-chain. This will in turn further enhance the competitiveness of the growth industries.

The government has taken active measures to reinforce this virtuous cycle and create an eco-system of collaboration and integration. SPRING, in partnership with EDB, drives the Partnerships for Capability Transformation, or PACT, initiative. PACT supports partnerships between large global companies and their suppliers, the majority of which are local SMEs. It helps suppliers upgrade their capabilities through co-innovation, technology test-bedding, knowledge transfer and the sharing of best practices.

At the spatial level, we also made a deliberate effort to cluster and integrate companies very early on. Jurong Island is a classic example. We clustered companies along the value chain of the Chemicals industry, connected them through seamless corridors of common services infrastructure, and created significant business and logistical synergies.

The JTC BioMed One at Tuas Biomedical Park also exemplifies the clustering approach. The multi-tenanted building comprises a Vendors Hub, which houses SMEs providing a range of supporting services to larger Biomedical companies in Tuas Biomedical Park. This co-location allows prompt and efficient support services to be provided to the biomedical companies, and creates business opportunities for the supporting SMEs. This helps raise the productivity of the whole industry.

JTC Space @ Tuas, the latest in JTC’s range of next-generation infrastructure developments, represents a stride forward in our efforts to support collaboration and integration. It will go beyond the clustering of companies within an industry – to cross-industry clustering. The concept of creating integration synergies is similar, but the implementation is bold.

The JTC Space @ Tuas will see the integration of heavy manufacturing industries within the same development as lighter industries. The high-specification units located on the ground floor of JTC Space @ Tuas will support heavy manufacturing industries such as the Oil and Gas industry, while the ramp-up and flatted factories stacked above will house lighter manufacturing industries such as Precision Engineering.

This provision of different factory types within a single development will enhance collaboration across industries. To give an example, Oil and Gas companies require a complex array of Precision Engineering products and solutions to run their operations. Co-locating the two industries will not only reduce transportation costs, but also offer the potential for the companies to integrate their business processes and become more productive. The local Precision Engineering companies can also leverage their partnerships with the larger Oil and Gas companies to move into higher value-added activities. In other words, JTC Space @ Tuas will help to forge many win-win cross-industry partnerships.

Beyond providing space for companies, JTC Space @ Tuas will also integrate other supporting facilities, which can further enhance the productivity of the companies. These include a workers’ dormitory, which will allow workers to save on commuting time, costs and energy, and a Heavy Vehicle Park, which can serve the needs of the heavy industries both in the development and in the vicinity.

 

In conclusion, JTC Space @ Tuas exemplifies the Government’s commitment to strengthen the competitiveness of our key growth industries and support collaboration and integration both within and across industries. We will continue to develop innovative infrastructure to partner and support companies in their efforts to seize new growth opportunities and improve their productivity.

On this note, let me congratulate JTC on the groundbreaking of JTC Space @ Tuas and I look forward to the opening in due course. Thank you.