Opening Remarks by Minister Lim Hng Kiang at the MTI Pioneer Generation Tribute Event at Fairmont Ballroom, Raffles City Convention Centre

Former Ministers for the Ministry of Trade and Industry

Mr S Dhanabalan

Mr Lee Yock Suan

Mr Yeow Cheow Tong

Distinguished guests

Ladies and gentlemen

I am very honoured to join in this evening’s tribute event to our MTI pioneers. As we stand on the threshold of Singapore’s 50th anniversary of independence next year, it is timely and fitting that we acknowledge your contributions and celebrate your achievements.

The economic circumstances today are very different from those that you experienced 50 years ago. Let me give you a sense of how far we have come today

In the 1960s, Singapore’s GDP was around $8 billion. Our GDP in 2013 is about $360 billion, or more than 40 times in the 1960s. Unemployment then was high at 13 per cent, but it has dropped to below 3 per cent today. Singapore welcomed just 91,000 visitors in 1964, but in 2013 we saw more than 15.6 million visitors. Put another way, in 2013, on average, over every three days, Singapore saw more visitors than we had for the whole of 1964.

Some commentators have described this remarkable progress as an “economic miracle”. I checked the dictionary and the dictionary defines a miracle as a supernatural event. While Singapore had indeed enjoyed a bit of luck in catching global opportunities, the bulk of our success was due to the hard work, perseverance, and good policies put in place by our Pioneer Generation Singaporeans. Nothing supernatural about that.

It is therefore timely, and right to honour our pioneers, but what is the best way to acknowledge your contributions? 

One way is to document the contributions of each officer. Each of you will have your own lessons to share, your own stories to tell of how you overcome the odds. Indeed, we have selected some of your experiences and shared them with officers across the MTI family in the lead-up to this tribute. Each story is short, but powerful. And collectively they do illustrate graphically the remarkable changes that have taken place.

Each agency is also celebrating its milestone anniversaries, which will allow for the documentation of the collective story of the organisation. For example, EDB celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2011. As part of their celebrations, they went through their archives and gathered many interesting memorabilia and stories which were exhibited at the National Museum. While I do not expect every MTI agency to exhibit your history at the National Museum, I do encourage you to gather your own stories, to ensure that the lessons and experiences of our pioneers are not lost. 

But tonight, we are gathered together as one MTI family, and I would like to acknowledge your contributions by drawing three lessons from the past 50 years as guideposts for future generations of MTI officers. 

Building strong institutions

The first lesson is the necessity of building resilient institutions, with a strong corporate culture to carry on our success. Let me give you two examples. 

EDB officers today have a reputation as road warriors and initiators. They travel all over the world to talk to companies and bring in investments for Singapore. At home, they pull together all other government agencies to provide a one-stop, whole-of-government solution to investors.  

This corporate culture of looking out for new opportunities of not taking “no” for an answer and pushing the envelope, was formed when EDB was established in 1961 with the mandate of attracting investments to Singapore. Our pioneers knocked tirelessly on doors and cold-called potential investors. This spirit of perseverance, determination and initiative thus shaped the culture and ethos of EDB as an institution today.

As another example, when economic imperatives and circumstances change, it is important that we remain resilient and flexible, taking up new roles or re-focusing old ones to meet the new challenges. While this is most pertinent to officers and it applies to institutions too.

JTC was spun off from the EDB in 1968 when it was recognised that a dedicated agency was required to develop and manage Singapore’s industrial estates. Similarly, the Trade Development Board was restructured and renamed IE Singapore in 2002, as part of our new strategy to help Singapore-based companies internationalise and grow in an increasingly global market.

The merging of different institutions or restructuring of an existing institution to meet new mandates therefore are sometimes  necessary. However, by ensuring that our institutions remain strong and adaptable, we remain relevant and, over time, build up a strong reputation and establish a good brand as we have done so with our MTI agencies.

Policy Innovation

The second lesson we can draw is that of policy innovation. In the public sector, our job is not simply to enforce rules and regulations.  We must help facilitate the creation of wealth and generation of good jobs. The environment is constantly changing and we must innovate to respond to and stay ahead of the changes. Let me cite three examples

Township vs. industrial estate

In the 1960s, Jurong, where Singapore was supposed to start our industrialisation journey, was nothing but swampland and marshes.

 
The challenge faced by our Pioneer Generation Singaporeans was to lay the necessary infrastructure in place and fill up the empty land with factories. Working conditions were harsh and simple things, like ensuring a reliable electricity supply was a real challenge.

However, if you had just focussed on putting in place the basic infrastructure and building industrial estates, it would have met our immediate challenge but would have limited our long term growth.

Our pioneers recognised that a more holistic approach was needed. Hence, instead of just building industrial estates, JTC defined their mission as building townships. Beyond management of the industrial land, JTC provided facilities to improve the well-being of people living and working in the area. Thus in addition to factories, JTC also built housing and amenities, including the Chinese and Japanese Gardens. 

This additional policy value add of our JTC pioneers in those early years, of developing townships instead of just industrial estates, meant higher effectiveness. We were then able to replicate this model in some of our overseas projects, including Suzhou Industrial Park, Vietnam Singapore Industrial Parks and others. And at home, it allows Jurong to evolve into a commercial and business hub as well as a prime recreational and residential area with the Jurong Gateway and the Jurong Lake District.

TradeNet

The second example is TradeNet. With Singapore on the road to industrialisation, our pioneers were faced with a different challenge – finding markets to sell our products. An outward orientation was essential to grow Singapore beyond our constraints and boundaries. 

But in the 1980s, bottlenecks in the trade licensing process were affecting our customers and Singapore’s overall competitiveness as a trading hub. In response, we created the world’s first nationwide electronic data interchange system, TradeNet. This was launched in 1989 by the Trade Development Board to automate trade processing. By streamlining administrative processes through innovative use of technology, our pioneers greatly eased the burden placed on traders and all other intermediaries, such as financial institutions and shipping agents.
 

Jurong Island

Jurong Island, my third example, does not simply represent a way of overcoming our natural land constraints through reclamation by our pioneers, but also provided an innovative solution for enabling industry integration to generate synergies and economies of scale for our companies.

Without resources such as oil and gas in Singapore, we needed to provide a good value proposition for investors. Through the concept of clustering, companies can enjoy costs savings through shared third-party utilities as well as allow companies along the chemicals value chain to be sited in close proximity, building synergies through product integration.

In by-passing our resource constraints with innovative solutions, the success of Jurong Island speaks for itself with more than $47 billion worth of investments and more than 100 companies anchored there today.

Maintaining our conviction and thinking long term

Finally, the third lesson from our pioneers which I like to share today is that of maintaining our conviction and thinking long term.

The best example is our commitment to manufacturing as a key sector in our economy.

Thinking long term

The manufacturing sector provides more than half a million jobs and contributes around 20 per cent of our economy. Given Singapore’s resource constraints, the path of least resistance would be just to become a pure service economy. This can free up significant amounts of land, reduce our energy challenge and shrink our carbon footprint.

However, this would reduce our resilience and diversification. Our pioneers recognised the value of a strong manufacturing base and had sought to maintain it over the long term.

And there are good reasons for doing so. A diversified economy with both manufacturing and services provides a broader economic base and make us more resilient. It also generates demand for supporting services, such as professional services; and on its own manufacturing continues to create good jobs for Singaporeans over the long term, especially as we move towards exciting new growth areas such as data analytics, biologics or even space. 

The vision of our pioneers in taking the long view, and holding the course with commitment and conviction despite setbacks and challenges, are key factors for our success today.

Building upon a strong and resilient foundation

Ladies and gentlemen, our current generation of officers are now faced with their own challenges. Domestically, Singapore is facing increasingly binding resource constraints. As our economy matures and our population ages, we have to adjust to a slower rate of growth. Internationally, there is increased economic uncertainty and competition has become more intense.  

Fortunately, current generation of officers can draw upon the experiences and build upon the strong legacy left by our pioneers to overcome these challenges in the same spirit. 

And indeed, the baton has been just passed. Our pioneers had diligently levelled the hills of Jurong and filled in the coast of Tuas, to help Singapore overcome our land constraints.

And in the same spirit, the current generation had ventured underground to carve the Jurong Rock Caverns, the region’s first underground oil storage facility. The engineering and technical difficulties are immense, but we succeeded, in the same spirit of innovation and determination shown by you, our pioneers. 

This is the template for our continued success. The strong and adaptable institutions which you have built up over the years will provide the governance structure and platforms for us to achieve our missions. The culture of innovation and long-term thinking established by you will guide our way. The ethos and values of courage, conviction and resilience shown by our MTI pioneers will be exemplars for our officers today.

Conclusion

MTI pioneers, let me thank you for your hard work and effort put in over the years. You have laid a strong foundation for Singapore’s economic development in our early years, and we pledge to continue in the same spirit to ensure that we grow and build upon your success.

Thank you. I hope you have an enjoyable evening.