ADDRESS BY DR VIVIAN BALAKRISHNAN, MINISTER FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, YOUTH AND SPORTS AND SECOND MINISTER FOR TRADE AND INDUSTRY AT THE JOINT BLUESKY-GREENFIELD EVENT, HELD AT RED DOT TRAFFIC ON 16 MAY 2006 AT 7.00 PM

Distinguished panelists,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

An Innovative Economy for the 21st Century

For decades, Singapore has prospered through an investment-led economic strategy based on providing a well trained workforce and excellent infrastructure for manufacturing and services. However, this will not be enough. The competitive edge for the future must be the creative capacity of our people. We must be able apply our imagination, creativity and knowledge to generate new ideas and create new value. We must be able to combine artistic creativity, business entrepreneurship and technological innovation into new recipes for success.

Creative industries are among the fastest growing sectors of the economy. They also have a powerful, indirect impact on the rest of the economy - by adding style, aesthetics and freshness to differentiate our products and services.

Singapore as a Creative Hub

In 2003, the Economic Restructuring Committee envisioned transforming Singapore into a New Asia Creative Hub. In response, the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA), together with various agencies and partners, formulated the Creative Industries Development Strategy (CIDS). This exciting cluster covers the arts, design and media sectors and broadly includes visual, performing and literary arts; graphic, fashion, industrial, product, interior design, advertising and architecture; publishing, broadcast media, digital media, film and video.

We will position Singapore as an Asian marketplace for the creation, development and distribution of creative content and services.The acquisition, protection and management of intellectual property rights (IPR) are vital components of such a platform.

Strong IP protection provides essential reassurance for people engaged in the development, exploitation and licensing of creative content.

Leveraging on Licensing and Merchandising as Competitive Edge

Today, the worldwide licensing business is worth an estimated US$108 billion dollars, with entertainment and character licensing generating nearly a quarter of the total, or US$26 billion, in retail sales.

The famous Star Wars series has generated more than $4.3 billion in box-office taking and $11 billion in merchandising and licensing.For the Lord of the Rings trilogy, New Line Cinema took in more than $1.5 billion in retail sales of licensed goods. In 2004, Marvel generated almost $5 billion in worldwide retail sales of licensed goods for all its properties, which included Spider-man, X-men, Fantastic Four and Daredevil.

From Asia, we are also seeing an increasing number of successful commercial creative works.Examples are Pokemon, Hello Kitty, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Doraemon from Japan, and Mashimaro and Pucca from Korea. Introduced in North America in 1998, Pokemon has since generated more than S$31 billion in worldwide retail sales. 

Local companies have also begun to leverage on intellectual properties and creative designs to penetrate international markets.In the 1990s, we had the Mr Kiasu comic series by the Comix Factory.Our local toy company, Stikfas has re-defined the toy industry with a new genre, with the action-figure concept.It became the first local toy company to enter a 2-year licensing agreement with international toy giant, Hasbro for its Alpha Military toys.More recently, another company, Play Imaginative also tied up with corporate brands like Coca-Cola, Motorola, Nike, and o.d.m. for the launch of their Trexi Series 02 range of designer toys in October 2005.Made by Singapore designers Darren Gan and Jacky Teo, the 6.5cm-tall plastic figurine now comes in more than 30 designs and is highly sought after by enthusiasts worldwide.

All these companies illustrate the commercial potential of strong creative content combined with even stronger merchandising and marketing.

Government Assistance

Several initiatives have been launched to assist creative companies and individuals. For example, the Media Development Authority (MDA) has partnered the Global Brands Group to develop a one-year licensing and merchandising capability development programme.This initiative will help local media companies develop, protect and extend their intellectual properties derived from their media creation such as TV, film, animation or games content, and create a platform and opportunity for licensing of content beyond Singapore in the region and the world.

The National Arts Council (NAC) is working closely with local product company Art Ferris to create new commercial platforms for local artists and designers to showcase and market their works. Through this project, a collection of uniquely Singapore products designed by local talents was developed for sale to both retail consumers and corporations locally and overseas. INC3, a newly established Creative Industries incubator company, supported by Creative Community Singapore (CCS), will also be providing support to locally-based creative companies to develop their licensing and merchandising systems and capabilities. 

Conclusion - Staying Innovative to Stay Ahead

According to the PricewaterhouseCoopers’ report on Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2005 – 2009, the Asia Pacific will remain the fastest-growing region for the entertainment and media market in the next five years.

Asian companies are also fast becoming leaders in various fields. Japanese and Korean companies like Sony and Samsung have leapfrogged into the international arena through innovative designs to win top awards at global design fora. Other companies from China and other Asian countries will also try to develop their iconic design brands for the world market.

Hence, we need to work harder on innovation and helping our enterprises leverage innovation in international markets. Local companies should collaborate with the creative industries to exploit this flourishing market, which is expected to contribute 6 per cent of our country’s GDP by 2012. We need bodies such as red dot and INC3 to be the seed-beds from which our young Singaporeans will develop their breakthrough ideas and create globally competitive products and services.Together, we can propel Singapore closer to the league of creative cities such as London and New York, and become abuzz with new ideas and entrepreneurial energy.

Thank you.