1. A very good afternoon to all recipients, friends, teachers, principals, and of course our partners who are awarding you the scholarship today.
2. I believe this is quite a special moment for all of you. Not just because you are getting a scholarship today, but also because it has been quite a long while since we have had an in-person scholarship event.
3. We started this scholarship about 11 years ago together with our partner organisations to develop a new generation of industry leaders.
4. Our vision is not just about the respective partner organisations supporting their own manpower needs. If we had wanted to do that, it would have been quite straightforward for each of the sponsoring organisations and partner organisations to give out the scholarships individually.
5. Instead, when we started this 11 years ago, we had a bigger vision, a bolder vision. A vision where we can grow a new generation of industry leaders that will help entrench Singapore's proposition to the world.
6. This decision has not changed. In fact, it has become even more important.
7. Today I'll be brief in my remarks. I will share about three shifts in the global economy and how we hope this generation of scholarship holders will help us navigate these challenges in time to come, because in time to come, you will be part of the industry leadership team for Singapore.
8. Many things are changing today, and many more things will continue to change. But there are a few things that stand out for Singapore.
9. The first question is: how do we ensure that we entrench ourselves in the global value chain over and beyond just making a living?
10. Let me use an example. In the the early days of Covid, when we had to secure essential supplies, from food to medicine, what allowed us to secure all these amidst the global supply chain disruptions, shortages, and even panic in various sectors?
11. The reason we were able to secure the supplies is not just because we had the financial resources. It was also because we had entrenched ourselves in the global value chains, which made us hard to be displaced.
12. That meant that people could not easily bypass us. We were producing things not just of value, we were producing essential things that people needed in a crisis.
13. This need to entrench ourselves in a global value chain has become more important than ever before.
14. In a crisis, more so than in peacetime, we need deep industry capabilities that allow us to continue to produce things of value that entrenches our value in a global supply chain.
15. While you might be receiving scholarships from a diverse range of sectors, you all share the same mission. In time to come, I hope through your leadership in the respective industry sectors that you eventually join, you will help to entrench Singapore's position in the global value chains. That is the first thing that I hope you will do.
16. The second thing that I hope all of you will do is to help Singapore transit smoothly in the energy and carbon transition.
17. This doesn't just entail going into new green industries. In fact, in time to come, every industry needs to be green.
18. Regardless of the organisation that you will be joining, you will be part of this effort to help Singapore make the necessary energy and carbon transition.
19. When attracting investments to Singapore, we consider how we can overcome our land constraints, financial constraints, manpower constraints and so forth. We plan carefully in order to optimise our available resources.
20. But going forward, we will have one new factor to consider. And that is our carbon budget.
21. We have made pledges to reduce our carbon footprint and we have every intention to fulfil our promise. As a nation, we lead with our word and build trust.
22. How can we make the energy and carbon transition, enable every industry to be as green as possible? That is our second challenge.
23. This carbon challenge is similar to our water challenge 50 years ago, where we turned a constraint into an opportunity. Today, water is no longer just a constraint but an opportunity for us. We have the technology and the know-how to turn various sources of water, from rainwater to wastewater, via reverse osmosis to fresh water, at competitive and comparable prices. In 50 years, we have turned water from a constraint to an opportunity.
24. Our challenge in the next 50 years, with your help, is to similarly, turn the energy constraint into an energy opportunity, where our industries lead the world in how green we can be and how small a carbon footprint we can have, even when we are producing the same thing, like for like, compared to the rest. And if we can do that, then we will create a new competitive advantage for Singapore through this effort.
25. So first, entrench ourselves in the global value chain. Second, how do we embrace the carbon transition and create new competitive advantage?
26. There's a third challenge that I will lay out today for all our scholarship recipients and sponsoring organisation, and that is our demographic transition and the global demographic transition.
27. For the world, the weight of the global demographics will shift. China and the US and Europe are aging rapidly. Whereas in Africa, some countries have relatively young populations.
28. Domestically, our population is also aging. Our local domestic workforce will soon reach a peak and plateau.
29. How do we keep our industries vibrant in such an environment? How do we become even more manpower lean in all our production methods? But this is just part of the issue. The other part that we have to ask ourselves is how do we leverage our ability to connect the global talent network so that the sum total of our available manpower and talent is augmented. This would enable us to have a wider pool of global talent, comprising Singaporeans and non-Singaporeans that are in the Singapore network.
30. If we take Switzerland as an example, they have a very interesting and dynamic model. They do not just depend on their domestic manpower. Instead, they are able to build a global talent network to support their industries and tap into the best ideas all around the world, creating opportunities for the Swiss, not just in Switzerland, but globally.
31. And that is also our goal. How do we make use of all our available manpower, including an aging population, which some may see as a potential challenge, but we see as an opportunity because of the knowledge and experiences of our older workers.
32. So these are three challenges that I've laid out today, that I think can unite all of us here, both partner organisations and scholarship holders.
33. These three challenges will define how competitive we can be in the next lap of Singapore's development. How we can constantly find new niche areas to entrench Singapore's position in a global value chain that makes us harder to displace, especially in a crisis.
34. How do we make the energy transition so that our industries are greener than the rest? And because we are greener than the rest, we create new competitive advantages for ourselves.
35. How do we embrace the demographic transition, and break away from the conventional mindset about young and old in Singapore? By nurturing our youth, we can create new talent networks both in Singapore and beyond, so that we create the best companies, which in turn generates the best job opportunities for Singaporeans in Singapore and beyond.
36. If we can collectively raise a new generation of industry leaders in you, then I think our vision of the Singapore-Industry Scholarship will have come a long way. May all of us join hands to take Singapore forward.
37. Thank you very much.