Mr Lee Yi Shyan at the Ribbon-cutting Ceremony for NYU Tisch School of the Arts

Speech by Mr Lee Yi Shyan Minister of State for Trade and Industry at Ribbon-cutting Ceremony for NYU Tisch School of the Arts on Monday, 8 October 2007 at 10:30 am at the Tisch Singapore Campus

Ms Diane Yu, Chief of Staff and Deputy to the President, New York University

Dr Mary Campbell, Dean, Tisch School of the Arts

Dr Pari Shirazi, Vice Dean, Tisch School of the Arts

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A very warm welcome to Singapore! It is a great pleasure to be here with you this morning at the official opening of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts’ Asia Campus in Singapore.

I am impressed with how quickly you have transformed this building, changing the façade to reflect the spirit of Tisch as it is known in New York City. But more than the façade, I am sure that over the next few years, Tisch Asia will be deeply infused with the varied Asian cultures and influences in Singapore, and this will be reflected in the works of your students.

The appeal of a film education in an Asian environment is demonstrated in the overwhelming 300 applications for the inaugural class of 33 students for Tisch Asia. This also speaks well of Tisch’s standing as one of the world’s top film schools. By choosing to set up its first international campus here in Singapore, Tisch’s presence is a major boost to our education landscape, adding diversity to the courses which are already offered here. Singapore now offers internationally-recognized courses ranging from business, wealth management, and digital animation to arts and fashion, culinary arts, luxury brand management, and hospitality.

Our vision is for Singapore to be a world-class education hub renowned for its intellectual capital and creative energy. Under the Global Schoolhouse initiative, we have attracted 16 such internationally renowned institutions including University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, S P Jain and the University of Nevada Las Vegas. For many of these schools, their campus in Singapore is the only one in Asia. These foreign institutions clearly recognize the viability of Singapore in attracting students from around Asia and offering them world-class education.

Tisch Asia will also bolster our efforts to build up the burgeoning creative industry in Singapore. Singapore’s access to the vast number of film locations, the reservoir of Asian stories in the region, as well as the extensive range of media services capabilities available within Singapore will complement aspiring film-makers’ work in Tisch Asia. In fact, 2007 saw a bumper crop of 10 Singapore-made films released in cinemas, with at least three more to be screened by the end of this year.

I understand that Tisch is staging the renowned Next Reel International Film Festival in Singapore for the first time, in conjunction with the opening of Tisch Asia. Festivals such as this will expose our audience to the work of young and innovative film-makers and broaden their film-watching experiences.

Let me end by congratulating Tisch on this milestone venture, a happy beginning from a 3-year courtship between EDB and Tisch. May your path ahead be filled with wonderful achievements and successes.

Thank you.