Opening Remarks by Acting Minister for Transport Mr Chee Hong Tat at the Singapore Maritime Foundation New Year Conversations

Mr Hor Weng Yew, Chairman, Singapore Maritime Foundation,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

1.     Good evening.

2.     It is always a pleasure to attend the Singapore Maritime Foundation (SMF) New Year Conversations at the start of the year. Let me begin by wishing everyone a happy, healthy and successful year ahead!

3.     This year’s event is particularly meaningful as SMF is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2024.

4.     I would like to congratulate SMF for its achievements over the past two decades. Many thanks to the current SMF board under the leadership of Mr Hor Weng Yew, as well as our former board members and past Chairmen (Mr Teo Siong Seng or SS Teo; Mr Michael Chia and Mr Andreas Sohmen-Pao) for their many contributions to Maritime Singapore.

5.     Let me highlight a few examples of what SMF has contributed to Maritime Singapore.

a.     SMF helped to secure Singapore’s inclusion as a seat of maritime arbitration in the Baltic and International Maritime Council. This was important in developing Singapore as a maritime arbitration hub.

b.     On talent development, SMF’s MaritimeONE Scholarship has been a mainstay of Maritime Singapore’s landscape since its inception in 2007. To date, SMF has worked with its partners to award close to 600 scholarships, with a sponsorship value of $16 million.

c.     To provide youths with opportunities for experiential learning and to build closer rapport with the maritime sector, SMF launched the MaritimeONE Internship Program in 2022. SMF has since placed more than 100 students in nearly 70 leading maritime companies.

6.     SMF has also been an effective catalyst for thought leadership and collaboration across the sector.

a.     Chairman of SMF, Mr Hor Weng Yew, co-chairs the Tripartite Advisory Panel alongside Mr Nick Potter from Shell, to engage stakeholders and gather industry feedback on emerging and future skills and capabilities for our maritime talent.

b.     SMF also initiated the CEO Breakfast Series in 2022 to foster collaboration and exchange of ideas amongst maritime leaders.

c.     And of course, this annual event has been a regular opportunity for our maritime community to collectively take stock of what we have achieved in the past year, and prepare ourselves for the year to come.

Maritime Singapore in 2023

7.     2023 was a fruitful year for Maritime Singapore, despite the ongoing geopolitical tensions and supply chain disruptions.

8.     Our maritime and port ecosystem achieved several record highs.

a.     We crossed the 3 billion gross tonnage mark for annual vessel arrivals for the first time last year, achieving a record 3.09 billion gross tonnage overall, reflecting growth in all the segments on containership, bulk carriers, tankers, ferries and specialised vessels.

b.     Next, our container throughput reached a new record of 39.0 million TEUs. 8 berths from Tuas Port Phase 1 are now operational, while Phase 2 reclamation is 70% complete.

c.     Bunker sales volume reached a record of 51.8 million tonnes, reflecting Singapore’s support to the global shipping community as a multi-fuel bunkering hub.

i.     This included supplies of alternative fuels to support maritime decarbonisation.

ii.    We supplied 520,000 tonnes of biofuel and 111,000 tonnes of LNG, conducted the world’s first ship-to-containership methanol bunkering operation, and saw the introduction of several fully-electric vessels, arrivals of wind-assisted propulsion vessels and a liquid hydrogen carrier.

d.     As a quality flag, the Singapore Registry of Ships saw significant growth and crossed 99.6 million GT for the first time. We can expect to reach the 100 million GT milestone very soon, early this year.

9.     Our international maritime centre (IMC) also flourished in 2023.

a.     We retained our top position in the Xinhua-Baltic International Shipping Centre Development Index for a decade.

b.     Total business spending by key maritime companies exceeded $4.8 billion, with MPA facilitating the establishment or expansion of 25 companies through its different programmes, setting up desks to enhance digitalisation and decarbonisation.

10.    On the global stage, Singapore was re-elected to the councils of the International Maritime Organization, and the International Association of Maritime Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities. Singapore continued to facilitate international consensus as the Chair of the Working Group on IMO Strategic Plan and Vice-Chair of the Maritime Environment Protection Committee. We actively contribute to international technical assistance and capacity-building programmes. In 2023, we also established Green and Digital Shipping Corridors with like-minded partners in China, Japan, and the USA.

11.    I would like to express my deep appreciation to all of our tripartite partners for your dedication and hard work, which have contributed to Maritime Singapore’s successes in 2023.

Staying Ahead in 2024 and Beyond

12.    Looking to 2024, we can expect some rough seas ahead, amidst a more challenging operating environment for the maritime industry.

a.     The global economy is expected to grow at a slower pace in 2024.

b.     Inflationary pressures and weak consumer sentiment may continue to weigh on economic and trade growth.

c.     Trade flows and supply chains are also being disrupted by geopolitical uncertainty and climate change.

13.    At the same time, emerging technologies such as digitalisation, automation, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) present new possibilities for the sector to improve its efficiency and create new business opportunities.

14.    In 2024, Maritime Singapore must find ways to navigate the stronger headwinds and choppier waters that we will see in the short term, while continuing to invest in industry transformation and talent development to secure our long-term growth and success.

15.    We are not done developing and growing our hub port and international maritime centre. There is still a lot of potential for further growth and to bring about new opportunities for businesses and new jobs for our workers.

Navigating a More Challenging Operating Environment

16.    The Government regularly reviews our processes to find better ways to achieve our policy and regulatory objectives, while reducing regulatory and compliance costs on businesses where possible.

17.    For example, MPA collects port dues for services provided to ocean-going vessels that call at our port.

18.    To insure itself against the risk of defaults, MPA currently requires all billing parties that are billed more than S$5,000 annually to furnish a security deposit or banker’s guarantee.

19.    MPA has studied how to take a more risk-based approach to its credit management, and calibrate its approach towards billing parties based on their credit risk.

20.    I am pleased to announce that with effect from 1 April 2024, MPA will waive the need for security deposits and banker’s guarantees for billing parties that MPA assesses to be of lower credit risk.

21.    This move is expected to benefit about 80% of MPA’s existing billing parties, and improve businesses’ cashflow by more than $20 million each year. This will help all our maritime companies, including small-and-medium enterprises.

22.    MPA will continue to work closely with our tripartite partners from the industry and unions to identify further rules we can review and other areas for improvement to simplify our processes, reduce compliance costs and shorten processing time. I believe such moves would be welcome by our stakeholders. Each move may not be very significant, but when you put them together, they reinforce our competitiveness as a hub port and international maritime centre.

Maintaining the Momentum of Industry Transformation

23.    Looking towards the longer term, Maritime Singapore’s transformation towards a more digital and sustainable future will require investments now. We need to invest early to be ready for the future, and not wait for the future needs to be upon us before we take action. It is like navigating a ship – if we see a hazard ahead, we need to take steps now to avoid the hazard and not wait till the hazard is right in front of us before we act.

24.    This is why we decided to embark on the challenging journey to decarbonise our maritime industry, as part of the global efforts to combat climate change. There are risks involved. Some of the initial efforts may not succeed, and the results of many of our initiatives will only bear fruit over the longer-term. But we have to start now by putting in place the foundations, building our capabilities and forging our partnerships.

25.    A good example is the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD), which is chaired by Mr Andreas Sohmen-Pao and headed by Professor Lynn Loo. This is an industry-led platform with support from MPA, to advance our decarbonisation efforts in partnership with industry players. I encourage our companies to leverage on the diverse research ecosystem here, to work with the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation, and other entities such as the American Bureau of Shipping Electrification Centre and the Lloyd’s Register Maritime Decarbonisation Hub, as well as our IHLs like NUS and NTU, to conduct studies and pilot new projects which can contribute to a greener and more sustainable maritime industry.

26.    I also urge our partners to keep up the momentum of industry transformation which we have collectively been building over the past few years, including in the area of digital bunkering.

27.    This will reduce compliance costs and improve productivity for vessels taking bunker at our port, and could save the maritime industry 40,000 man-days per year.

a.     Let me share an example. Golden Island Diesel Oil Trading is a bunker supplier which worked with MPA on digital bunkering trials from November 2022.

b.     On 1 December 2023, the company transited to full digital bunkering, which has enhanced the productivity and efficiency of their processes. They estimate that at least two hours of manual data entry work is saved for their crew every day. Again, the savings may not seem significant, but if you add it all up, every day you save 2 hours, across all the companies, that’s how we save 40,000 hours a year.

28.    Apart from reducing costs and enhancing productivity, digital bunkering improves crew safety by eliminating the need for cargo officers to cross between vessels to exchange documentation.

29.    Singapore became the first port in the world to implement electronic bunker delivery notes in November 2023, and MPA plans to make digital bunkering a mandatory feature in due course.

30.    To help companies that want to make the transition earlier, MPA has worked with Enterprise Singapore and Workforce Singapore for companies to apply for support in early adoption and manpower upskilling respectively.

31.    I encourage our companies to tap on the support measures, and make the change so that you can reap the benefits sooner rather than later. 

Investing in our Maritime Workforce

32.    The other key area that we must keep investing in is attracting, developing, and retaining our talent pool.

33.    One key effort in this regard is redesigning maritime job roles.

34.    Job redesign takes time, planning, and effort, but it can pay off for both employers and workers.

a.     Employers can deploy your human capital more effectively in redesigned roles that are of greater strategic and commercial value, and improve worker attraction and retention.

b.     Workers can benefit from enhancements to their day-to-day tasks, as well as better career progression opportunities. They also derive greater job satisfaction because they can see greater purpose and meaning in what they are doing.

35.    During Singapore Maritime Week last year, MPA and SMF launched the Maritime Workforce Transformation Guidebook to help companies redesign maritime jobs.

36.    NTUC’s Company Training Committees have also worked with about 1,600 companies across different industries to facilitate job redesign and other types of business and workforce transformation.

37.    I encourage more companies to tap on the available support from the Government and NTUC to explore how job redesign can help to transform your organisations and workforce.

Conclusion

38.    To conclude, while we are clear-eyed about the choppy seas and risks ahead, I am confident that Maritime Singapore has the dynamism and gumption to ride these waves of change and seize opportunities for our next bound of growth.

39.    The COVID-19 pandemic was a test for us, and we did not just pass it but performed well. We are benefitting from the important moves that we made during the crisis, which built a strong ecosystem with a high degree of trust and partnership. Now that the pandemic is over, there will be new challenges, but the same approach would enable us to set sail across the horizons for new opportunities. This is not only because of our infrastructure and technology, but more importantly because of our people and the strong tripartite relationship between industry, unions, and government.

40.    Thank you all once again for the trust and partnership which have enabled our successes in 2023. I look forward to an exciting year of change and growth for all of us.

41.    Thank you.