Speech by Mr Lee Yi Shyan, Minister of State for Trade & Industry and Manpower at Trek 2000 International Ltd New Product Launch on 20 Jan 2010 (Wed), 7pm at Hilton Singapore
Mr
Henn Tan,
Chairman & CEO, Trek 2000,
Mr Hiroto Nakai,
Senior Manager, Flash Business Strategy
Development,
Toshiba Corporation
Japan,
Ladies and
gentlemen,
Good
evening.
I am pleased to be here this
evening to witness the launch of Trek 2000’s latest innovation –
the FluCardTM[1].In
March 2000, Trek 2000 introduced the world’s smallest external
storage device, the ThumbDrive®,
which is now ubiquitous. Now, the FluCardTM, with its unique features, is
expected to add to the transformation in the digital and video
industry by introducing a new digital way of life to the
world.
Electronics is a key pillar of Singapore’s
economy
I am especially proud that Trek 2000,
a home-grown company, is using Singapore to launch its new product
to Asia and the world.Indeed, a successful launch of the
FluCardTM will inject new vibrancy to our vision for
Singapore to be a centre of innovation for the electronics
industry.
The Electronics industry contributed 26% of our
manufacturing value-add in 2008, and has been amongst the most
productive sectors in Manufacturing, with value-add per worker
amounting to about S$154,800. Semi-conductors
and data storage are the two most important economic
components in
our Electronics cluster.
These two sectors require a broad spectrum of R&D capabilities
and technological solutions, ranging from those in the basic
materials and other sciences, devices, systems and platforms, to
applications.
Electronics is also a key
demand driver for the logistics,
chemicals and precision engineering industries, and it supports
capability development in other sectors such as avionics, medical
technology and clean energy.
Singapore remains committed to further enhance our competitiveness in
the Electronics sector. We hold leadership positions in
semi-conductors and hard disk media, and we want to continue to
attract strong manufacturing interest from electronics companies.
For the first three quarters of 2009, the Electronics industry
committed S$4.25 billion in fixed asset investments and S$1.55
billion in total business spending. Overall, Singapore’s
Electronics industry did well against a challenging macroeconomic
environment last year.
R&D is also an integral part of the Singapore
electronics value chain. Today, Singapore hosts the full value
chain of R&D activities from components to product
development.In 2008, the Electronics industry accounted for 81% of
the manufacturing sector’s R&D expenditure, and employed 56% of
the manufacturing sector’s research engineers. Nine out of the
world’s top 10 fabless semiconductor companies have also
established R&D activities in Singapore. With our firm
foundations in semiconductor R&D and strong working
relationships with major industry players, Singapore will continue
to be an attractive location for companies to base their activities
here.
In line with global industry trends, the EDB has
also identified four new growth areas for the electronics
industry.They are green electronics, bio-electronics, plastic
electronics and security.Singapore can harness on its
cross-disciplinary capabilities in electronics and existing
strengths in material physics and biotechnology to help anchor more
activities in these new growth segments moving
forward.
Significance of Trek’s activities in
Singapore
Against rapid technological
obsolescence, our Electronics industry needs to quicken
innovation and create useful intellectual properties to stay ahead.
Trek 2000 is an excellent example of a home-grown company
that has acted on this need for innovation, through R&D and
commercialisation of the FluCardTM. In addition, the company is also able to tap on
Singapore’s electronics ecosystem by outsourcing chip manufacturing
to a wafer foundry in
Singapore.
I hope to see
more of such partnerships in our electronics ecosystem as the
industry enters its next wave of growth.
Conclusion
On this note, let me extend my
heartiest congratulations to the management and staff of Trek 2000.
We look forward to more innovative ideas from
you.
Thank you.
[1]The FluCardTMis a plug and play solid state memory card with built-in Wi-Fi and security features, which enables seamless peer-to-peer sharing between devices as well as transfer of contents to a data storage server.