Mr Lee Yi Shyan at NTUC Fairprice Made In Singapore Fair

​ADDRESS BY MR LEE YI SHYAN, SENIOR MINISTER OF STATE FOR TRADE & INDUSTRY AT NTUC FAIRPRICE MADE IN SINGAPORE FAIR, 30 JULY 2015, 9.50AM AT FAIRPRICE XTRA AT JEM

Mr Seah Kian Peng, CEO, NTUC FairPrice,

FairPrice management and staff, 

Distinguished guests,  

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

Good morning.

Introduction

Thank you for inviting me to join you at this special Fair.

As we celebrate SG50 this year, the “Made in Singapore Fair” takes on a special significance. Over the past 5 decades, many home-grown food manufacturers have grown as Singapore has. Some have exported to far flung markets such as the Americas and Europe. Others have become well-known brands in the Asia region. The Made-in-Singapore brand commands certain price premium, because of their brand attributes in quality and safety. These fine qualities differentiate the Made-in-Singapore brand from competition. 

Strengthening Singapore’s Food Industry

We know yet the Made-in-Singapore brand did not achieve its brand premium overnight. It is through years of improvements, insistence of high safety and hygiene standards, and discipline in manufacturing processes that the Made-in-Singapore brand takes on market recognition as such.  I am glad that our industry did not take short cut and compromise on quality for cost, but sticks to the principle of quality and safety. As the world population increases, so will the demand for safe and quality food supply. 

The Government is committed to helping our food companies grow. SPRING’s Capability Development Grant (CDG) funds capability upgrading programmes tailored to an SME’s needs, and covers capability areas such as brand development, business strategy development and productivity improvement. At Budget this year, we simplified the CDG application process for projects below $30,000 to encourage more SMEs to take up the grant. 

One such beneficiary of Government support is Sin Mui Heng. Sin Mui Heng started out fifty years ago as a roadside stall selling dim sum products in the Hougang district. With SPRING’s support since 2010, Sin Mui Heng has been able to automate and streamline its manufacturing processes, enabling it to produce enough quantities even for export. As a result, Sin Mui Heng has been able to grow its sales by 5 times over the last decade, and today supplies to customers as far away as Mauritius, Egypt and Barbados. 

To stay ahead of competition, many of our food manufacturers are investing in R&D and innovation. Many of them also collaborate with the Food Research and Innovation Centre (FIRC) at Singapore Polytechnic on scientific ways of improving the nutrition, texture, taste and shelf life of processed food. Others discover new ways to manufacture traditional food items and new packaging so that production can be scaled up for export markets. Happily, Singapore’s food exports increased from $6.7 billion in 2011 to $8.2 billion in 2014.  

For our food manufacturing industry to grow further, especially in the current tight labour market conditions, the industry will need to further invest in their human resource development. They need to upgrade the skills of existing workers, while attracting higher quality new entrants to the industry.  

In this respect, I am glad to note that the Food industry became the first sector to rollout the SkillsFuture Earn and Learn Programme in April this year. This program helps our local food manufacturers build a steady talent pipeline for positions such as food technologists, food processing engineers and quality assurance officers. Such talents will render our food manufacturing industry an increasingly knowledge-intensive one.  

Conclusion

In closing, I would like to once again thank FairPrice for taking leadership in promoting the Made in Singapore brands and helping our SMEs to find a foothold in the marketplace and enabling them to enlarge their production. With economies of scale, our SME manufacturers can then invest in processing, R&D and branding.  On this note, I wish everyone even greater success in the years to come. Thank you.