Mr Wee Tew Lim

Chairman, Plugfest Steering Committee

Mr Wilson Tan

Chairman, Information Technology Standards Committee

Distinguished guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Good morning

I am very pleased to be here this morning to officiate at the opening of the ITSC PlugFest 2002. This is a commendable initiative of the IT Standards Committee to demonstrate that standards can be promoted and implemented in an innovative way. I am told that this event focuses on standards for e-learning, and smartcard and personal identification, especially the connectivity and interoperability of products.

Standards play a key role in our daily lives. They have become so prevalent that we tend to take them for granted. Many people may not even know that there are ISO standards for credit cards, computers, paper sizes, shoe sizes, wheel chairs and even wine glasses.

The original purpose of standards was to ensure that transactions were legitimate. Today standards are necessary for more than just this reason. With globalisation and the widespread use of the Internet and telecommunications, it has become increasingly important for products and equipment to have connectivity. The alternative is hard to imagine.

Without standardisation, we will not be able to use credit cards so conveniently across borders and continents; electronic devices, such as computers and mobile phones, cannot be inter-connected. Thanks to standardised communication protocols, they are interoperable. Without standardisation, the world will, therefore, be much less efficient and transactions, more costly.

The chairman of a leading camera producer once cited this example to explain the importance of standardisation. A Japanese visiting the United States buys a camera there, loads it with film he bought in Canada, and develops the film in Singapore. He does this as a matter of course without a second thought. Without standards, none of these would have been possible. If there were no standards, the film that the Japanese bought in Canada would not work on the camera bought in the US and it would not be possible to develop the film in Singapore.

This is also an excellent example to show that standards are a key factor affecting international flow of goods and services. According to an OECD study, differing national standards and conformity assessment practices contribute 2-10% of a company's overall production costs. These differences could also manifest themselves as technical barriers to trade. Hence, international harmonisation of standards is crucial to world trade. This issue is recognised in the World Trade Organisation's Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). Under this agreement concluded in 1994, WTO member countries agreed not to prepare, adopt or apply standards and technical regulations that restrict global trade.

In Singapore, besides facilitating market access, we would like standards and standardisation to also play a pivotal role in enhancing total factor productivity and competitiveness of industry, for example, in enhancing productivity through standardisation in supply chains and IT industry. It is with this in mind that the Singapore Standardisation Strategy was launched last year.

As part of the national standards strategy, SPRING Singapore is also facilitating greater standardisation in industry for higher productivity. The standardisation of supplies, processes and equipment ensures greater consistency and higher quality in products and services as well as greater economies of scale. The technologically advanced and networked nature of the new economy intensifies this need for products and components to work together. Standards provide a common platform for these different products and systems to interact with one another. This, in turn, leads to greater competitiveness of industry and strong user confidence and trust.

Therein lies the importance of the work of standards committees, such as the IT Standards Committee (ITSC), which co-ordinates some 250 experts in Singapore's infocomm standardisation activities. By putting in place this initiative, the IT Standards Committee is championing new frontiers for the national standardisation programme. PlugFest provides a neutral standard-based platform for competing vendors to test out their products for inter-operability. This event aims to accelerate the pace of standardisation in Singapore's IT industry.

In particular, PlugFest focuses on promoting the use of Singapore Standards and international standards of ISO and IEC for eLearning, and smart card and personal identification. The implementation of these standards can lead to cost savings and productivity benefits for manufacturers and developers. Consumers, too, will benefit by not having to worry about the compatibility of these products and their return on investments.

To meet the demands of an increasingly sophisticated population that expects high standards in service and infrastructure, I am pleased to announce that SPRING Singapore, together with the Infocomm Development Authority and other relevant agencies, will work on standardisation projects aimed at improving inter-operability between different service infrastructures. These projects will enhance operational efficiency, and ultimately bring convenience to the end-user. Just as today’s forum is about interoperability of smart cards, I can envisage a scenario where different smart cards that we carry in our wallet can one day be transformed into one card which can perform different functions.

When that happens, all we need is a single card for public transport and payment of goods and services. You may be aware that SPRING Singapore represents Singapore in ISO and IEC, which are the two main international bodies that develop international standards in non-electrical and electrical fields respectively. The adoption of a common standard such as an ISO or IEC standard means that every card which complies to the standard can inter-work with one another. Like many consumers, I look forward to the day of one-card, many-systems which will undoubtedly make our lives more convenient.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the ITSC Chairman, Mr Wilson Tan; Mr Wee Tew Lim, Chairman of the PlugFest Steering Committee; and members of the Steering Committee and its various subcommittees for organising this event.

I wish all of you a fruitful and successful day.

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8 July 2002