I am pleased to be here today to celebrate this occasion with two of our valued friends – Toshiba Corporation and Reuters Asia Pte Ltd. The Distinguished Partner in Progress (DPIP) Award is Singapore’s way of recognizing and honouring them for their many contributions and deep friendship to Singapore over all these years. More importantly, Toshiba and Reuters have, through their long-standing commitment to Singapore, helped to reinforce our value proposition as a compelling investment and business location.

Significantly, the two companies we are honouring today represent two essential areas of Singapore’s economic strategy – manufacturing and services. Manufacturing and services are Singapore’s twin engines of growth. We will further strengthen them as we move forward in our economic development. To do so, we will have to continue to attract foreign direct investments, or FDI, in these two sectors.

Singapore began its industrialisation efforts in the 1960s. At that time, it was the foreign investors who brought in their labour-intensive manufacturing activities to Singapore to help solve our unemployment problems. From this, we progressed to focus more on skills-intensive, then capital-intensive and later, technology-intensive activities to differentiate us from our competitors. If you trace the history of Toshiba in Singapore, you will find that their operations have evolved and grown much along the same lines as our economic development strategies. Indeed, Toshiba stands as a fine example of how we work with leading companies for greater synergy and value-added.

Similarly for the services sector. Reuters, has over the 150 years in Singapore moved up the value chain of activities and expanded its range of services offerings, extending them beyond Singapore to cater to the whole region. In its operations such as the hosting and distribution of Internet content from its Asia Pacific web-farm, Reuters has created high value-added jobs in the info-communications & media industry here, as well as boosted Singapore’s position as an info-communications hub. In providing a reliable and trusted news service, Reuters contributes to an efficient flow of information that is an essential element of the knowledge-based, innovation-driven economy that Singapore is transiting into.

Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) have been responsible in a very large way for Singapore’s economic progress. Through EDB’s active promotion to foreign investors, Singapore has managed to successfully attract many foreign investors to locate their operations in our country. Over the years, FDI in Singapore have grown manifold, from a modest S$1.4 billion in 1970, to a cumulative total of $182 billion in 2000.

Most of the Foreign Direct Investments relate directly or indirectly to manufacturing. This reinforces the point that manufacturing remains the key to economic development in Singapore. Manufacturing will continue to be a driving force in attracting FDI and in spurring Singapore’s economic growth. But with growing competition, manufacturing activities in Singapore have changed.

Today, manufacturing in Singapore involves more sophisticated technology and higher skills. Companies need to engage in more innovative research work in order to continuously deliver new products and services, and new technology. In Toshiba’s case, the company has expanded its manufacturing activities in Singapore from colour TVs to a wide range of other high-tech products, including the manufacture of liquid crystal display panels. Toshiba has also embarked into high value-added activities such as product development and design from their Singapore operations.

Singapore will have to continue to distinguish ourselves from our competitors to continue to attract foreign investments. Today, even with intense competition from China, Singapore can still claim to have done fairly well in the FDI race. But we must expect that in the years ahead, China will present increasing competition for FDI.

In total, these investments are expected to create about 20,000 jobs for Singaporeans in the coming years.

For Singapore to remain competitive, we will need innovation and enterprise, to enable companies to continually create new products and services, and for new companies to emerge and grow. They will create the enterprise ecosystem that will bring together large and small companies to interact and transact to stimulate and inject the vibrancy and effevercence that is essential in an entrepreneurial economy to bloom. Thus, even as we build the conditions for Singapore to become more entrepreneurial, foreign direct investments still remain very important for us.

EDB will have to continue to attract investment dollars from abroad while building the conditions conducive for entrepreneurial enterprises to grow.

To our valued partners, Toshiba and Reuters, our commitment is that Singapore will work to sustain the most conducive total environment for business and innovation to flourish. My warmest congratulations to both your companies for receiving the DPIP Award. We look forward to many more years of rewarding partnership and friendship between your company and Singapore.

Thank you.

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