Speech By Mr Lim Swee Say
Minister for the Environment

At the Launch of the Environmental Testbedding Initiative
21 Aug 2003, 11.00 am at The Regent Hotel

Our economy is performing below its full potential capacity today. There are workers who are jobless, school leavers looking for jobs, factories not running at full speed.

Our immediate priority is to secure more investment and capture more business opportunities so as to put our economic capacity to full use again. This is important because only by reducing the slack in our economic capacity, will we be able to reduce not only unemployment, but also under-employment in our workforce. To succeed, we will have to keep our cost structure not only competitive, but also responsive to the ups and downs in the global markets. There is no painless solution because there is simply no easy way out of any major economic challenge.

At the same time, we recognize that even though a competitive and responsive cost structure is necessary for our economy to return to performing at full capacity in the near term, it is not enough to keep us going for the long term. For our economy to grow at 4% in a sustainable manner, we will need to keep on expanding the "potential capacity" of our economy so that we will not run out of "growth" capacity. This is best achieved by breaking emerging bottlenecks in the national economy.

Breaking economic bottlenecks is not something new to Singapore. We have been doing this for a long time, except that at each stage of our economic development, there are different bottlenecks for us to break: from industrial infrastructure and public utilities, to transportation, finance, manpower and so on. Because we were able to keep creating and realizing this "growth" capacity in our economy, we succeeded in growing our economy at a rate faster than that of the global economy in the 80’s and 90’s.

Today, in response to global opportunities and challenges, we are making yet another transition towards becoming a knowledge-based and innovation-driven economy. To succeed again in creating and sustaining our future "growth" capacity, we need to overcome two key limiting factors: workforce transformation and innovation development.

Workforce transformation is a key factor in expanding our economic potential in future. In a knowledge-based economy, investment will be attracted by the availability of well-trained, qualified and committed people who take pride and excel in their jobs. This is why we invest so much in education for our young and lifelong learning and skills re-development for our workforce. We also continue to attract global talents to add to our talent pool simply because, the bigger and better the workforce in Singapore, the greater our "growth" capacity as a knowledge-based economy.

Innovation development is the other key factor. As we move beyond a value adding economy towards a value creation economy, the combined effects of workforce transformation and innovation development will enable us to achieve a quantum leap in our "growth" capacity.

We should aim to create this "growth" capacity in every sector of our economy. The environmental sector is one such sector. In Asia, a fast growing population and rapid industrialisation have heightened the importance of environmentally sustainable solutions. The environmental industry in Asia is a growing one. According to a report by Environmental Business International, the size of the environmental technology industry alone could reach US$62 billion in Asia, excluding Japan, by 2010.

Singapore can capitalise on these market opportunities while pursuing our vision outlined in the Singapore Green Plan 2012. We need to discover new and innovative ways to make our living environment more sustainable. At the same time, we should strive to find export markets for these innovative solutions, thereby helping to realise the expanded capacity of our national economy.

We have started laying the foundation for innovation development since the mid 90’s. EDB launched the Innovation Development Scheme in 1995, and ENV launched the Innovation for Environmental Sustainability (IES) fund about two years ago.

Today, EDB and NEA are taking innovation in the environmental sector another big step forward. The launch of the Environmental Test-bedding Initiative is another milestone in private-public partnership. Besides financial assistance, the private sector partners will have easier access to relevant infrastructure and technical expertise in the public sector. Where relevant, regulatory support too. In short, the ETI adopts a more holistic approach in helping companies test-bed environmental innovations in Singapore.

This morning, I am pleased to join you here to witness the MOU signings for two ETI projects.

The IdaTech-DPRL project is to enable the test-bedding of fuel cells to provide lighting in multi-storey carparks. Many parties, including HDB, NTU, NEA and EDB have worked together to bring emerging fuel cell technology from the laboratory to our carparks.

The second MOU is between Matrix Membranes and PUB. Matrix Membranes is a local environmental start-up that has developed membrane prototypes for the treatment of seawater and wastewater. As a result of its collaboration with PUB, it will be able to test and demonstrate its membranes’ capabilities at one of PUB plants.

These two projects mark the start of a closer public-private partnership for innovation development in the environmental sector. I hope to see many more of such win-win projects as we strive to expand our potential economic capacity to sustain growth in future. I congratulate all the partners here for your efforts and wish you all every success in these exciting collaborations.

Thank you.