Opening Address by SMS Lee Yi Shyan at the Asia-Singapore Infrastructure Roundtable 2014 at Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to be here at the third Asia-Singapore Infrastructure Roundtable organised by International Enterprise (IE) Singapore.

Materialising bankable regional projects
Through the decades, Singapore has invested steadily in infrastructure. In the past 5 years, the total value of our construction projects ranged from S$23 billion to S$36 billion. Last year for instance, our construction project values amounted to S$36 billion, of which more than 40 per cent was contributed by the public sector’s spending on housing, schools, hospitals, airport, roads and our mass rapid transit system. We are fortunate that we are able to finance investments in public infrastructure internally or through a public private partnership (PPP) model such as that of the S$1.33 billion Sports Hub.

Many countries in SEA and Asia have substantial infrastructure investment requirements, and how they will go about financing their investments is of great interest to everyone present at this roundtable. For instance, India’s new Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi has said that India needs US$1 trillion worth of infrastructure investments over the next five years. The newly elected Indonesian President Mr Joko Widodo has also said infrastructure development to be one of his priorities for his government. It was reported that Indonesia requires US$150 billion worth of infrastructure investments over the next five years. The same needs can be said of Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Many of you in the audience know the infrastructure financing needs of the region well. The question is whether we can do more to realise these needs, by increasing the bankability of the projects through the provision of a project structuring framework and creating the necessary conditions for the projects to be commercially viable.

Against this backdrop, Singapore is doing its part to build up the expertise needed for project scoping and financing.

For instance, in March this year, we announced the official start of the Asia Infrastructure Centre of Excellence (AICOE), a collaboration between IE Singapore and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) that aims to enhance private sector participation in regional PPP projects  . The Centre has now put in place a core team and advisory panel, and has been actively engaging ASEAN governments on infrastructure projects. Through the AICOE and partnerships with other stakeholders like the World Bank, we hope to ready public sector projects for private sector financing.

Growing the local talent pool for infrastructure

Another example of expertise development is the revised Master of Science (MSc) in Project Management (PM) featuring a project finance specialisation launched by NUS and IE. This programme will develop a pipeline of 60 infrastructure professionals annually, and these graduates can look forward to an exciting and rewarding career in the infrastructure sector.

In addition, IE Singapore will also provide scholarships to channel talent into fast-growing infrastructure companies. The Young Talent Programme (YTP) scholarship is a mid-term local scholarship co-funded by IE Singapore and participating Singapore companies, to groom business leaders for global careers. This progamme will be expanded to include more infrastructure companies. 
 
Government support for infrastructure sector

Today’s roundtable provides a platform for us to focus our minds on the specific funding needs of power generation and distribution projects. We need the private sector here to initiate more roundtable events and conferences to discuss opportunities in specific verticals, countries and regions. Companies may also wish to tap on the Singapore Tourism Board’s (STB) Business Events in Singapore or BEiS in short incentive that aims to anchor and organise industry events, such as infrastructure-related ones, in Singapore. This will further enhance Singapore’s reputation as a testbed of new ideas relating to infrastructure development opportunities in Asia.

On this note, may I wish everyone a fruitful roundtable ahead. Thank you.