SPEECH BY MR S ISWARAN MINISTER OF STATE FOR TRADE AND INDUSTRY AT THE I-CUBE OCBC SECURITIES ONLINE STOCK CHALLENGE 2006 CLOSING CEREMONY ON 20 JANUARY 2007, 10.00AM AT THE STUDENT ACTIVITIES CENTRE, NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Ladies and gentlemen

Good Morning,

INTRODUCTION

It is a pleasure to be here with all of you at this closing ceremony for the I-Cube OCBC Securities Online Stock Challenge 2006.

When I look at all of you, I am quite envious that you had the opportunity to participate in, and be given the exposure to the stock market at such a young age. This is a relatively sophisticated capital market environment. If you look at it in terms of the kind of products that are available, the kind of connectivity across international markets, and the speed in which you can execute a transaction on a 24 hours basis, it is a very exciting and challenging environment. So the earlier you start to get a feel of the market, the more you learn the basics, the better off you are to develop your skill sets and capabilities whether you take it up as a profession or for your own financial management.

Interest in Financial Management/Markets

Today, there are many young people who start investing at a very young age. There was a Business Times article earlier this week[1], which noted how 28-year-old Alvin Chia is now able to live comfortably on the regular passive income generated from his equities. I am not sure if the word “passive” may applybecause investment is an active thing. You don’t just invest and sit back. You have to be constantly monitoring because the decision not to divest is effectively a decision to stay invested at current prices. Nevertheless, Alvin learnt about investment at a young age when he sold hamsters to his schoolmates. He realised that the more he invested in rearing hamsters, the more the passive income he will receive once the hamsters reproduced. By the time Alvin was 21, he had managed to save $40,000 for investment in equities.

There is another story of Nick, who started investing at 14 with $5,000 in initial capital from his father back in 1998.Asiaweek[2] reported that the teenager eventually bought $55,000 worth of shares through his father’s account, presumably with his father’s knowledge, and made $61,000 after taxes and commissions.He is a smart chap, because he cashed out in 1999 before the Nasdaq bubble burst.

The younger generation of today is a lot more market savvy, and I can see that more and more of you are willing to undertake the risk/return tradeoffs in investments to grow your wealth. Empowered by the internet, you have a rich source of information for investment decisions, and ready access to electronic platforms to execute them.The key is how you translate such information and access into profitable investment decisions, and to execute them as part of your personal financial planning or as part of your corporate strategy.

The I-Cube OCBC Securities Online Challenge

This competition was held over the last part of 2006. I am very happy for you in one way, because you participated in this Online Stock Challenge at a time when the market was surging. In this kind of market, it is very hard to be a loser. I am quite sure every one who took part must have made money, unless you were quite exceptional in your stock choices. At the same time, I am also a little worried because you must not leave the Online Stock Challenge with unrealistic expectations about the stock market. What we are seeing today is unprecedented levels of record highs in the stock market, and this makes a big impact on everybody. In this type of environment, all of us are smart investors. The challenge is maintaining your performance, having the nerve and the discipline to keep your portfolio position and keep managing it through ups and downs. So I hope that was something you had learnt as well in the course of the Online Stock Challenge.

In this regard, the I-Cube OCBC Securities Online Stock Challenge 2006 represents a good opportunity to develop your skills by trading in a simulated and “risk-free” environment.It is a good platform for the participants to learn the mechanics of electronic trading and to pick up basic trading skills.It is also an opportunity to practise how you can use technical analysis to guide investment decisions and to better understand the features of different investment products in the market.

I commend the students from the Investment Clubs of NUS, NTU and SMU for organising this “enriching” event, no pun intended there, for our budding investors, and OCBC Securities for their enlightened sponsorship.I am also pleased to learn from the organisers that over 2,500 students from the Junior Colleges, Centralised Institutes, Polytechnics and Universities took part in this inaugural Challenge, which saw them putting their skills and knowledge of stocks and warrants to good use. This is a very good sign, and I hope that this general level of interest continues to grow amongst the students.

Conclusion

I congratulate all the winners of the I-Cube OCBC Securities Online Challenge 2006.I know you must have had a lot of fun participating in this Challenge and at the end of it, the winners also get real cash prizes to boot! To me that is the smartest investment of your time and energy. I hope this experience has whetted your appetite to learn more about financial markets and instruments, and to adopt an investment culture as part of your life.

More importantly, I encourage all of you to take a proactive approach towards financial planning and to take control of your financial future from the very outset of your working lives. Building your wealth is not just about “you working for money” – it is also about “your money working for you”.

So congratulations once again and I wish you all the best.