Mr President, please accept the Singapore Delegation’s heartiest congratulations on your election as President of the 88^th Session of the International Labour Conference.

The past few years have been particularly difficult years for many Asian countries struck by the regional crisis. Fortunately, this year has seen the regional economies recovering from the malaise. The World Bank has estimated that this year the Asian crisis economies will grow by 3.2%. Singapore despite sound fundamentals was also affected and suffered a slowdown. We had become uncompetitive in the post-crisis environment. We had to address shortcomings in our cost structure. With strong support of workers, unions and employers, government was able to significantly reduce total business cost, a large part of which was labour cost. This enabled us to regain our cost competitiveness, reduce unemployment and take advantage of the regional turnaround and sustained demand from the OECD markets. Our recent experience was a very timely and sharp reminder that tripartite cooperation was essential for a small economy to compete in the global market. Our strong tripartite relationship had enabled us to achieve a swift recovery and workers will be rewarded with wage increase.

While the region may have emerged from the downturn, we see many challenges ahead. Globalization and the rapid pace of technological advancement will underpin the growth of the knowledge-based economy and spawn many new opportunities in investments and trade. These are positive developments which should be encouraged even though they will also result in more competition. Slowing down globalisation may offer short-term respite from competition. But the long-term consequence would be inefficiency and suboptimal utilisation of human and natural resources.

In Singapore, the arrival of the New Economy is exemplified by the restructuring of the manufacturing sector. We have seen major MNCs relocating their lower value added operations out of Singapore on account of lower cost of operation in other countries. This is unavoidable and we accept it as part of the process of globalisation. We expect such restructuring, downsizing, outsourcing and redistribution in key economic sectors to continue in the years ahead.

At the same time, new investments will create jobs which will require higher skills while rapid advances in technology will shorten the shelf life of knowledge and skills. Hence, retraining and skills upgrading for workers will be critical to ensure that they remain employable in the New Economy. Our objective is to ensure that workers, young and old, are equipped with the skills and knowledge to remain employable for life. Hence, we are promoting life-long learning and have launched a $200-million Manpower Development Assistance Scheme to help employers and workers to acquire skills for the New Economy.

Mr President, the ILO has a key role to play in support of human resource development in Member States. In this regard, we are pleased to note that the 88th Session of the ILC will discuss the issue of human resources training and development, in particular vocational guidance and training. This is relevant in light of the changing nature of work, flexible work arrangements, changing skill requirement and more frequent job changes.

Mr President, Singapore has consistently deplored the exploitation of children and the practice of child labour. Child labour is non-existent in Singapore and we have acceded to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in November 1995.

To reaffirm our stand against child labour, I am pleased to announce that Singapore has decided to ratify Convention 182 and to adopt Recommendation No.190 concerning the Worst Forms of Child Labour. In doing so, we are aware that there could be minor provisions in some of our laws governing the protection of children which may not be entirely consistent with provisions of Convention 182. Nevertheless, what is crucial is that in spirit and in practice there is no child labour in Singapore. We will consult ILO for advice and assistance to facilitate early ratification. Here we look forward to ILO adopting a more flexible approach in interpreting the provisions of ratified conventions. This will have the wider implication of enabling more member states to better meet the objectives of the conventions resulting in higher ratification rate.

Mr President, the Governing Body has recommended the tabling of a motion on Myanmar for failing to carry out the recommendations of an ILO Commission of Inquiry. This motion under Article 33 is an unprecedented move, which deserves most careful consideration. At the recent ASEAN Labour Ministers’ meeting in Manila, Singapore had joined fellow ASEAN members to welcome Myanmar’s invitation, without preconditions, to ILO to send a technical cooperation team to assist Myanmar regarding compliance with Convention 29. We note that ILO Director-General had indeed accept the invitation and dispatched such a team on 23 May. This signals the emergence of constructive engagement and the Member State’s desire to comply with its obligations under Convention 29. We also understand that Myanmar had conveyed to the ILO an assurance to consider administrative, executive and legislative measures to prevent instances of force labour. We hope that such assurance would be given due consideration in any discussion under Art 33.

Mr President, my delegation looks forward to a fruitful discussion of the various issues on the agenda of the ILC. I am confident that under your able leadership, this Conference will come to a successful conclusion.

Thank you.