Mr Lee Yi Shyan at the PMAS 70th Anniversary Gala Dinner

Speech by Mr Lee Yi Shyan, Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Minister-in-charge of Entrepreneurship at PMAS 70TH Anniversary Gala Dinner, 24 August 2007, 7.30pm at Raffles The Plaza, Singapore

Mr. Jan Ong, President of the Print & Media Association of Singapore,

Association members,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen.

Good evening. I am delighted to join you today in celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Print and Media Association of Singapore (PMAS).

The Singapore Printing Industry

Singapore has earned itself a fine reputation in the international print export market for its high quality, reliability, and value-added services. Coupled with our excellent logistics facilities, efficient customs clearance, and strong intellectual property protection regime, our printing industry has become a choice supplier for many international print buyers. This is in no small part due to the efforts put in by the industry players and PMAS.

Our printing companies have been very resilient, surviving downturns and strong competition by finding niches for themselves and moving towards high value print jobs. Some of our printers like Craft Print International, C.S. Graphics, and C.O.S. Printers have found their niche in printing art books, coffee table books, and even journals. PMAS has also been actively seeking out opportunities to grow the industry. Last year, PMAS took the lead and developed a proposal on capability building for the printing industry, which was supported by the Government under the Local Enterprise and Association Development, or LEAD programme. With PMAS celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, it is timely for PMAS to chart the way forward for the printing industry to tap future growth.

Global Opportunities

Increasingly, we are observing an outsourcing trend from Europe, USA and Australia to Asia.US, UK and Australia alone outsource more than $5 billion of print production worldwide. Publishers today prefer to focus on their core business of developing content and exchanging rights. They are therefore constantly looking out for printers worldwide who are able to deliver high quality products at a lower price and provide one-stop printing services, to support them in their work.

So far, Singapore has done well in tapping on this opportunity. Today, we are the 4th and 5th largest print exporter to the UK and US respectively. We enjoy a reputation for reliability, quality and efficiency. That is why despite our higher costs, publishers continue to turn to us for high quality, high complexity products. Of course, we should ask ourselves if it will be profitable for us to move to be the top three print exporter to the US and UK market. What does it take to be there?

In fact, some international publishers have chosen to set up regional and international headquarters in Singapore. I was told that eight of the world’s top 12 scientific, technical, and medical journal publishers are already printing and distributing their journals from Singapore. Take for example, Blackwell Publishing, one of the largest scientific, technical and medical journal publishers worldwide, has made Singapore its global publishing service headquarters. It engages a group of printing SMEs here to print its journals for worldwide distribution. Other reputable publishers who have offices and distribution centers in Singapore include World Scientific

[1]

, Taylor & Francis

[2]

, and Reed Elsevier

[3]

.

Challenges Ahead

Our printers should leverage more on Singapore’s supply chain infrastructure and human resource and skill base to seize opportunities of growth, so as to establish Singapore into a major printing hub. To achieve this, the printing industry needs to sharpen its edge in the face of rising global competition. Let me explore four areas.

Build and Strengthen Key Capabilities

Print buyers today are growing in sophistication, requiring higher quality print products, faster turnaround time as well as more value-added services, ranging from pre-press to packaging and fulfillment services. For instance, publishers are increasingly demanding for shorter print runs to avoid incurring excessive storage costs. At the same time, the marketing and advertising firms are also requesting for fewer copies of marketing collaterals due to wider choices of marketing platforms like the Internet, emails to priority customers and SMSes. Printing companies hence need to adapt quickly and acquire new capabilities.

One such capability is Digital Printing, which allows companies to print without printing plates by using direct imaging software. Besides shortening production time and cost, it allows companies to offer Print-On-Demand services to meet the increasing demands for shorter print runs. Companies should also develop auxiliary printing services such as design, translation, editing and order-to-print solutions to provide “total solutions” for their customers.

Some companies are already embracing this strategy. Today, Teck Wah value Chain and Markono Group both offer Print-On-Demand Digital Printing for shorter, more flexible print runs and personalized products as well as integrated, seamless order fulfillment solutions. I encourage more companies to follow these good examples and evolve into more valuable partners for print buyers. In doing so, companies can leverage on SPRING’s Capability Development Programme to upgrade and differentiate themselves from the rest of the competition.

Attract and Develop Talents

Besides upgrading capabilities, we also need to attract new blood to grow the industry. We can no longer depend exclusively on low skilled workers as this industry progresses. However, the talent pool can become dangerously shallow if many retiring master printers are not replaced with younger blood. We therefore need to develop more talents to contribute to the industry.

I am pleased that Sang Choy International, with the strong support of PMAS, NTUC, ITE and WDA, has launched a Print Technology Institute. The content and curriculum of the training have been designed to stay relevant to the needs of the industry. These training programmes will help to prepare workers for the growing demands of the industry. Therefore, companies should seriously consider sending your workers for upgrading courses so as to reduce the dependency on foreign workers.

Raise the profile of the industry

Apart from strengthening capabilities, the industry has to capture a larger share of the burgeoning printing export pie to grow and further establish its international presence. To do so, the industry has to actively profile itself overseas by organizing and participating in more overseas trade missions and major book fairs. I am heartened to note that PMAS is already representing Singapore’s printing industry in international forums and has helped its members participate in book exhibitions such as the Frankfurt Book Fair, London Book Fair and Book Expo America. In 2006 alone, 21 PMAS members have benefited from the book exhibitions PMAS participated in. I encourage PMAS to build on the past efforts and continue to take the lead in initiatives to brand and profile the industry internationally.

Collaboration between Industry Players

Lastly, companies should band together to achieve greater collective benefits. The Print Media Hub is a good example to illustrate this. Located at Paya Lebar iPark, the hub brings together different players in the printing value chain, integrating pre-press, press and post-press activities as well as complementary warehouse and logistic support. This approach enables the companies to create a competitive advantage by offering one-stop, integrated solutions. I applaud this collaboration.

IE Singapore has been encouraging Singapore companies to leverage on their International Partners (iPartners) programme to create competitive alliances when venturing overseas. One of our most successful alliances, the Singapore Building & Infrastructure Consortium (SBIC) has already clinched over $220 million worth of projects in the Middle East since its formation in 2005. The alliance has enabled the SBIC to present an integrated team capable of delivering complete solutions which no single entity would be able to offer on its own. I urge the printing companies to leverage on the iPartners programme to explore new growth markets.

Conclusion

With information and knowledge created at unprecedented rate, the entire information industry will continue to grow and revolutionalise, taking up new media and forms. The future of our printing industry will be bright if our players understand the underlying trends shaping the industry and adapt themselves quickly. Perhaps I should say, quickly is not enough but must be ahead of competition. Information is now digitised and carried over a wide range of media unknown to mankind thirty years ago. It is my hope that PMAS look ahead and invest in new capabilities collectively to create a bright future for yourself. The government will standby you in your journey to excellence and transformation. May I wish PMAS another rewarding and glorious 70 years ahead. Happy 70th birthday.

Thank you.

[1] Established in 1981, World Scientific Publishing Company is the largest international scientific publisher which produces 400 titles and 100 journals in various fields annually. Many of its books are recommended texts adopted by renowned institutions such as Harvard University, California Institute of Technology, and the Princeton University.
[2] Established in 1798, the Taylor & Francis Group commits to the publication of scholarly information and publishes more than 1,000 journals and around 1,800 new books each year, with a books backlist in excess of 20,000 specialist titles.
[3]Reed Elsevier is a leading provider of global information driven services and solutions for the science, medical, legal, education and business communities.In 2005 alone, Reed Elsevier published more than 15,000 different journals, books and reference works, as well as more than 500 online information services.It also organised more than 430 trade exhibitions for the science, medical, legal, education and business communities.