Mr Jim Fleischhacker, Corporate Vice President and President Asia South, Molex Far East South Management Pte Ltd,

Mr Masahiro Okabe, President, Sanden International (Singapore) Pte Ltd,

Mr Tan Sei Keong, Deputy Managing Director, Sumitomo Metal Mining Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen.

1. It gives me great pleasure to be here today to present the Manufacturing Headquarters or MHQ award to three of Singapore’s long-time partners, Molex, Sanden and Sumitomo Metal Mining. These three companies are global leaders in their respective industries. They have been in Singapore for more than 20 years. They and have constantly reorganised their operations here in tandem with the industrial development of Singapore to make full use of the capabilities we offer. At the same time, they contribute to our economic upgrading by enabling Singapore to remain relevant to the global economy.

2. I am pleased to be here to present the MHQ status to recognise the commitment these companies have made to further deepen their presence in Singapore, and also to convey our commitment to further strengthen Singapore’s partnership with them for many more years to come.

3. The purpose of the MHQ programme is to anchor new and better activities essential for Singapore to be at the cutting edge of capability development. It encourages companies to build indigenous know-how in leading edge manufacturing, and to complement these manufacturing-related competencies with business headquarter functions.

4. The growth of such a holistic business model will enable Singapore to play a value creation role in the global operations of leading MNCs,. Increasingly, their company in Singapore can servinge as a "mother plant" to manage and coordinate the network of production plants in the region and across the globe. MNC’s operations in Singapore can take on global product charter responsibilities, and assume the accountability and responsibility over the entire value chain of activities, ranging from design, development and manufacturing, to marketing and distribution, for an exclusive range of products. This is fully in line with our drive towards the Knowledge Based Economy.

5. With the award of MHQ status, companies will now be able to gain assess access to a broad range of support, including tax incentives, manpower upgrading and innovation development grants. I am pleased to note that today’s three MHQs will introduce new engineering capabilities in new generation interconnect technologies, automotive component manufacturing and advanced semiconductor packaging substrates to Singapore. This will help broaden and deepen the capability profile of the engineering cluster, and enable us to better capitalise on the growth of the global electronics, automotive and semiconductor industries. Let me briefly highlight the new activities that each of the three companies will be embarking on.

6. Molex is a global leader in the interconnects industry. The company will commit $20 million in development spending and $80 million in fixed asset investments over the next 5 years to step up the development and manufacturing of new generation interconnects in the Molex Singapore facility. It is also the first MHQ recipient from the USA.

7. Sanden is a global leader in automotive compressor manufacturing. It will invest $30 million to introduce new product development and manufacturing capabilities. The Singapore operation will also be restructured into a regional headquarters.

8. In the case of Sumitomo Metal Mining Asia Pacific, it will be introducing a $20 million full-scale production site for Tape-CSP substrate, its first high density production line in the world. The company will also continue to use Singapore as a hub for their leadframe business.

9. I congratulate our three recipient companies today. I thank you for your continued commitment to Singapore. I look forward to a long and fruitful partnership between you and Singapore. The MHQ concept is relevant to a broad range of industries. We hope your success will spur many more companies in various industries from around the world to set up their MHQs here, and enable Singapore to play a value-creating role in their global strategy. Working in partnership, we can succeed together in the era of Knowledge Based Economy.

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