Mr Lim Hng Kiang at the Seagate Singapore’s 30th Anniversary Charity Dinner

​Speech by Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry at the Seagate Singapore’s 30th Anniversary Charity Dinner on Friday, 27 July 2012, 7.00pm, Shangri-la Hotel  

Your Excellency David Adelman,
United States Ambassador to Singapore,

Mr Steve Luczo, Chairman, President and CEO of Seagate,

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am pleased to join you this evening to celebrate Seagate’s 30th anniversary in Singapore.

Seagate has come a long way since it first established its presence in Singapore. From simple hard disk assembly operations, Seagate Singapore now undertakes hard disk media manufacturing, research and development, and international headquarter activities.

Transformation of Singapore’s data storage industry

Singapore’s partnership with Seagate started way back in 1982 when Seagate established a sub-assembly plant for disk drive components here. It was also Seagate's first manufacturing plant outside the United States. Not long after, Seagate set up its first hard disk drive final assembly plant in Singapore. These investments marked the birth of Singapore’s hard disk drive industry.

From these early investments, we grew and became the world’s largest manufacturing location for hard disk drives. At our peak in the early 1990s, we accounted for more than half of the world’s disk drive units. We gradually moved on to more sophisticated hard disk drive manufacturing. By 2009, we became the world’s largest manufacturer of enterprise drives, possessing close to 80 per cent market share.

Through this period of growth and transformation, the data storage sector has generated significant economic benefits to Singapore.  Besides growing the electronics industry, it has also helped to develop our precision engineering, equipment design and process engineering industries.

Sustaining growth through innovation and R&D

As we all know very well, past performance is no guarantee of future success. We need to find ways to sustain our growth in the data storage industry. To achieve this, the industry must anchor itself in continuous technology innovation and R&D. 

Singapore has been building our capabilities on both fronts and our efforts have yielded results. Now, we have a highly skilled data storage workforce, a world-class data storage research institute, and a host of data storage companies in Singapore. 

Companies like Seagate Singapore play a key role in the continued development of Singapore’s data storage industry

I am heartened to note that Seagate shares the same vision as us. On the R&D front, Seagate has set up a drive design centre which started off with a seven-man team providing automation support for manufacturing. It has since grown to over 500 engineers and scientists who are undertaking an expanded range of high value-added activities. The Singapore team has also developed several award winning and industry-first hard disk drive products.

This evening, we are gathered here to celebrate yet another milestone of Seagate Singapore.  Steve’s leadership and foresight has been instrumental in strengthening Seagate’s R&D capabilities globally, and ultimately, in Seagate’s decision to establish a new R&D campus here.  This new campus will consolidate all of Seagate’s R&D activities into one iconic building, and create a more conducive environment for innovation and collaboration among researchers.  I look forward to reading about more award winning products from this team in the near future.

Conclusion

On this note, I would also like to applaud Seagate Singapore for its corporate citizenry and sustained efforts towards helping the local community.  In the past decade, Seagate has organised and participated in many community service events. Tonight is a prime example of these values in action as Seagate marks its 30th anniversary in Singapore with this dinner benefiting two charities - The Henderson Student Care Centre and the AWWA Community Home for Senior Citizens.

To Steve and the Seagate team in Singapore, I thank you for the trust and confidence you have placed in Singapore for the past 30 years. You are our valued partner in catalysing Singapore’s data storage industry’s growth and transformation to our current position of leadership. Let us continue to deepen this partnership. I wish Seagate every success, and I wish you all an enjoyable evening ahead.  Thank you.