Speech by SMS Lee Yi Shyan at Meinhardt Singapore's 40th Anniversary Dinner at Shangri-La Hotel, Island Ballroom

Dr Shahzad Nasim

Group Chairman, Meinhardt Group.

Distinguished guests.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Let me first congratulate the management and staff of Meinhardt (Singapore) and Meinhardt Group on their 40th anniversary in Singapore. This is a significant milestone indeed.
 
Meinhardt has grown with Singapore over the last four decades. It has played an important role in engineering some of our major infrastructure and building projects, such as Resorts World Sentosa. Your recent Built Environment Leadership Gold Class award from the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and the International Headquarters (IHQ) Award from the Economic Development Board (EDB) are recognition of the excellence in your work, and your commitment to Singapore.

Singapore as an Urban Solutions Hub

Meinhardt’s growth in the Asia-Pacific region is reflective of the urban solutions hub that Singapore has become. According to the Asian Development Bank,  44 million people are being added to Asia's urban population every year – that is 120,000 people a day who will need more than 20,000 new homes, 250 kilometres of new roads and infrastructure that can supply an additional 6 million litres of potable water.

To cope with this robust growth, many cities in Asia are keen to develop and implement smart-sustainable urban solutions that can address challenges such as overcrowding, traffic congestion and environmental degradation. Increasingly, cities are also introducing more Infocomm Technologies (ICT) and intelligence into their municipal services so as to enhance their efficiency and improve the quality of service for their residents.

According to an information company, IHS, all these works are estimated to amount to 4.0 trillion US dollars in 2015, with an increasing spending growth rate ranging from 2.3 per cent to 7.3 per cent per annum until 2019 across different countries.

This presents an excellent opportunity for local companies to diversify their markets, seize the growth potential, and strengthen their businesses. To achieve this, local companies have to become more forward-looking, intensify technology acquisition and invest in R&D.

We believe that Singapore is well-positioned to ride on this urbanisation megatrend, having earned an international reputation for developing creative solutions to overcome our resource constraints. For instance, NEWater was developed so that Singapore does not have to be reliant on water imports. We also developed the ERP system to curb road congestion. This urbanisation trend has in turn become an economic opportunity for Singapore and we are keen to develop the related industries such as engineering services to serve this exciting growth frontier.

New Centres of Excellence 

Therefore, I am pleased that Meinhardt will be partnering EDB to establish two new Centres of Excellence, one in Smart Cities; and another in Project Management & Construction Management.

These centres will host a core team of local talent who will be trained and groomed to take on larger and more complex urban infrastructure projects, with a focus on smart-sustainable solutions in Singapore and the region.

In the long run, I am confident that these new initiatives will maintain Meinhardt's edge as one of the leading integrated project management and engineering consultancies in the world. Meinhardt’s growth is aligned with Singapore’s intent to groom local companies that are able to compete globally in the smart-sustainable city and infrastructure fields.

Create Value through Investments in Technology

To give ourselves the additional advantage in the global arena, local companies have to invest in technology. It is only through such investments that we can create new value for export. Based on the findings by the Boston Consulting Group, the level of investment in technology in Singapore’s built environment sector was much lower at about 9 per cent compared to those in Australia, Japan and France, where they invest about 12 to 17 per cent of their turnover.

Our low level of investment in technology could hamper both our export potential to the region, and our productivity efforts domestically. Besides investing in ready-made technology, the sector should also go upstream, anticipate the future, and invest in R&D to create new game-changing technologies. R&D is the key to unlocking new value for businesses, and hence, it should not be an afterthought in a company’s business model.

Existing game-changing technologies include the Prefabricated Prefinished Volumetric Construction (PPVC) that BCA has introduced to the built environment industry. Some of you may also have heard of the robotic tiling machine being researched at the Future Cities Lab.  When it is completed, the machine would be able to work two to three times faster than a human worker, while maintaining high precision and consistent quality.

To help our built environment sector continue pushing ahead on the innovation front, companies can tap on BCA’s $5-million Innovation Grant (iGrant).  The areas of research include energy efficiency, resource efficiency, and high-impact construction productivity technologies.

Conclusion

As Singapore celebrates its 50th birthday next year, we should continue to create new knowledge and value in urban solutions. Singapore, as a living laboratory, is the ideal place to test new concepts, and develop new solutions. I believe Meinhardt will continue to be an important player in this laboratory.

Let me once again congratulate Meinhardt on your 40th anniversary, and extend my appreciation for your invaluable contributions to Singapore.  We hope to continue this excellent partnership in the years to come.