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14 Dec 2004
Speech by Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, at the combined international headquarters award ceremony for engineering and environmental services companies on Tuesday, 14 December 2004 at 10.00am at Raffles Hotel
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Good morning.
Introduction
- It is my pleasure to be here today to present the International Headquarters Award to six Engineering and Environmental Services or EES companies. We are happy that these companies, leading players in their respective fields, have chosen to site their headquarters in Singapore. We thank them for their vote of confidence in us.
Global Engineering and Environmental Services Hub
- Singapore's clean and quality living environment has been cited as one of the key features visitors and investors appreciate most about Singapore. By locating their HQs in Singapore, I am sure the companies with us today agree with this observation as well.
- These companies' decision to set up base in Singapore is significant on two counts - it is both a testimony to Singapore's attractiveness as a global Environmental and Environmental Services hub and also underscores the growth potential of this industry for Singapore. In fact, according to the EDB, Singapore?s EES industry is projected to enjoy an annual growth of 5% to 10% for the next 10 years.
- I believe Singapore is indeed well placed to build up a thriving environmental industry with local and global firms in water treatment, waste management, pollution control and energy services. We have here today environment specialists such as Otto, a world leader in the manufacture and supply of waste management containers from Netherlands, and Singapore?s SembCorp Environmental Management. The high value we place on water technologies has also led China-based Sinomem to locate their HQ here. Sinomem, a leading membrane specialist, will add to the vibrancy of our water technology field.
- Singapore also sees itself as the Houston of the East + + , that is, a comprehensive one-stop engineering solutions hub serving industries such as pharmaceuticals, electronics and infrastructure. This is in fact over and above Houston's trademark strengths in oil, gas, and petrochemicals. The presence of Beca, Flowserve and Kellogg Brown and Root here today boosts this vision.
- Let me briefly introduce these three companies in turn. Beca is one of the leading engineering consultancy companies in the Asia-Pacific and is also the first New Zealand company to be awarded the IHQ status. US-based Flowserve is a global leader in flow control solutions and their Asia-Pacific HQ here will manage the manufacturing base in Singapore, China and India. Kellogg Brown & Root is one of the top engineering and construction companies in the world. Their headquarters here will have significant cutting-edge activities such as front-end engineering, global procurement, technology licensing and laser scanning.
Attractiveness of Singapore for EES Companies
- Today's six companies will greatly add to the vibrancy of our Engineering and Environmental Services industry. I am told that besides citing factors such as our stable economy, strategic location, skilled manpower and excellent infrastructure as the basis for their choice of HQ, these companies have found Singapore attractive for several other reasons. Let me just highlight a few.
- For Flowserve, Singapore is the ideal location for their Asia Pacific hub because they find many of their customers amongst the global businesses located here. This reason is also echoed by Beca who have found new client contacts and opportunities through the large number of foreign companies here with regional operations.
- For SembEnviro, Singapore's support for R&D has proven to be the differentiating factor for them. Our recognition of R&D's importance and our willingness to commit resources to R&D is cited as a definite plus in helping companies like theirs expand and grow.
- Underlying these various reasons by the companies, I also want to bring up a point that Mr. Luc Muller, CEO of Otto, gave about Singapore. He said that Singapore has shown to the world that we always deliver on our promises. We may be small but our influence far outweighs our size. I am also told Mr. Muller loves it here so much that he is relocating from the Netherlands to Singapore to run his global business. We warmly welcome him here!
Conclusion
- In conclusion, let me congratulate all our six recipient companies and their management and staff. Thank you for your confidence in Singapore and for helping us to build up our Engineering and Environmental Services industry. I am confident more companies will follow your lead and help accelerate our efforts to make Singapore a global hub for environmental excellence. There are many growth opportunities and challenges ahead in the field and I encourage all to leverage on Singapore's strengths for your expansion. I wish each of you success. Thank you.
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