Mrs Josephine Teo and Mr Desmond Lee will be promoted to full ministers in the latest round of Cabinet changes, which observers said is meant to consolidate the front bench of tomorrow.

Four ministers of state will also be promoted to senior ministers of state: Dr Lam Pin Min, Dr Janil Puthucheary, Dr Koh Poh Koon and Mr Chee Hong Tat. They will continue in their current ministries.

Dr Lam will also be appointed Senior Minister of State for Transport.

TAKING EFFECT ON MONDAY

The changes are part of leadership renewal, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said yesterday. They take effect on Monday.

Political-watchers said the newly-promoted ministers will add to and strengthen the core team of fourth-generation leaders.

ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute research fellow Mustafa Izzuddin said: “The Prime Minister and his generation of ministers are building a team that can provide the necessary support to the next prime minister, so the next lap of Singapore’s political leadership will continue to be a team effort.”

Mrs Teo, 48, and Mr Lee, 40, will be Ministers in the PMO.

Mrs Teo will also be Second Minister in the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and give up her appointment in the Ministry of Transport. She will continue to oversee population matters, assisting Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean.

With Mrs Teo’s promotion, it is Singapore’s first time with two female full ministers in the Cabinet.

The milestone was not lost on her colleague – Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu – who hailed it as “yet another step forward for women” here.

Mr Lee will be Second Minister in his present ministries: the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of National Development.

He will be one of the youngest full ministers in recent years.

CAUTIOUS

Experts called this Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s way of enlarging and strengthening the pool of leadership, while not throwing the rookie ministers in at the deep end.

“This is a cautious pace of leadership succession,” said Institute of Policy Studies deputy director Gillian Koh.

“You don’t see the standing down of senior members of the Cabinet, and you have the youngest set double-hatting a lot.”

Observers saw Mrs Teo’s move as a sign that she may be groomed to be the next Manpower Minister, especially given her past experience working in the labour movement.

Mrs Teo said of her MOM appointment: “It feels like I am coming home to Singapore’s unique brand of tripartism at this critical juncture for our workers.”

The new senior ministers of state have all been in office for under three years: Dr Lam since August 2014, Mr Chee since October 2015 and Dr Janil and Dr Koh since January 2016.

Observers say this steep trajectory signals they will likely become ministers if they prove themselves.

This article by The Straits Times was published in The New Paper, a free newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.

SINGAPORE – Foreign precision engineering firms are investing more in Singapore, drawn by strong semiconductor demand and government incentives aimed at re-tooling an economy short of skilled labour.

The city-state is running programs worth billions of dollars to support productivity, automation and research, attracting global chipmakers including US-based Micron Technology Inc and Germany’s Infineon Technologies.

This investment rush into electronics helped the technology sector log 57 per cent output growth on average in October-February from a year ago, and kept Singapore from recession late last year.

“I’ve lived in Europe, I’ve lived in Japan, I’ve spent a lot of time in Taiwan and other countries. From a proactive standpoint, Singapore is about as good as it gets,” said Wayne Allan, vice president of global manufacturing at Micron, adding the Singapore government’s long-term vision was key to Micron expanding its investment.

Taking advantage of government grants, Micron is investing $4 billion to make more flash-memory chips in Singapore. It increased output by a third in the second half of last year and expects similar growth in the first half of this year.

Linear Technology Corp, a maker of analog integrated circuits, has opened a third chip testing facility in Singapore, and will produce 90 per cent of its global test equipment in the city-state.

All this has created something of a virtuous circle in the semiconductor supply chain, with chip testing equipment supplier Applied Materials reporting record shipments to Singapore last year, said its regional chief, Russell Tham.

It’s unclear how much of this revival in Singapore’s $40 billion chip industry is due to a so-called ultra-super-cycle in the global memory chip sector, and Singapore remains a smaller player than South Korea and Taiwan.

“It is vulnerable to a pull-back,” said Nomura economist Brian Tan. “If there’s a turnaround in the semiconductor industry … it becomes a lot more apparent that the underlying growth momentum is not great.”

MOVING UP

However, there are real signs that the targeted government incentives are helping firms move up the value chain.

One of the larger programs is the Productivity and Innovation Credit, where Singapore has budgeted S$3.6 billion ($2.6 billion) for 2016-18. Another S$400 million automation support package is aimed at small firms, and a S$500 million Future of Manufacturing plan encourages testing new technologies.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry says it encourages manufacturers to “embrace disruptive technologies” such as robotics. “These measures will help ensure the manufacturing sector in Singapore remains globally competitive,” it said, attributing the strong semiconductors performance partly to demand from China’s smartphone market and improved global semiconductor demand.

For Feinmetall Singapore, whose products are used for testing semiconductor wafers, grants covered about two thirds of the $100,000 cost of a needle-bending machine it needed to help overcome an island-wide labour shortage.

“If we use the same methods as before … I don’t think we can expect any growth,” said Sam Chee Wah, the company’s general manager, noting Feinmetall Singapore struggled to retain some workers for much longer than a year, even after nine months of training.

GlobalFoundries Singapore, a wafer maker, has spent $50 million on 77 robots, each able to perform the tasks of 3-4 workers. This has helped the company move up the value chain into parts for self-driving cars and security-related chips for credit cards and mobile payments, says general manager KC Ang.

Singapore now has about 400 robots per 10,000 workers, the world’s second-highest density after South Korea. Most robots are used in electronics, according to the International Federation of Robots.

And further developments are in the pipeline.

AUTOS, IOT

At its Singapore manufacturing hub, Infineon is developing productivity tools such as robotics and automated guided vehicles which it hopes to deploy to other production sites. Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductors is also developing vehicle-to-everything technology, enabling vehicles to communicate with each other and roadside infrastructure.

Instead of trying to compete with high-volume producers such as China or Malaysia, Singapore has shifted to higher-end products, said Jagadish C.V., head of Systems on Silicon Manufacturing, another firm making semiconductor wafers.

“So you do the products which others can’t do so easily,” he said, adding his firm had shifted most of its output to specialised products, such as chips used in smartphones.

CK Tan, President of the Singapore Semiconductor Industry Association, noted the global chip industry is automating faster than other sectors because of cost pressure, a need to eliminate or reduce error, and have a consistent process control.

“In Singapore, it’s even more important for us to … look at how to speed up or increase the level of automation because of the lack of skilled resources,” he said. “The industry has recognised it has to move upscale. The government incentives play a part to allow the manufacturing side to be relevant, to be at least cost competitive.”

The Ministry of Trade and Industry said first-quarter growth in manufacturing – up 6.6 per cent year-on-year, while overall GDP was up 2.5 per cent – was due mainly to output expansion in electronics and precision engineering.

Integrated circuits were Singapore’s biggest export product among non-oil domestic exports in January-March, topping S$6 billion ($4.29 billion), according to trade agency IE Singapore.

SINGAPORE – Ever yearned to explore Singapore’s Kusu, Lazarus and Seringat islands, but just never had the time do to so?

Fret not, there’s an app for that.

They are among the 30 places recently added to Google Street View’s Special Collections segment for Singapore, which allows users to take a 360˚ virtual tour of the Republic’s top attractions.

Other newly mapped locations include Duxton Plain Park, Seringat Island and even the dining cluster, Japan Food Town at Wisma Atria.

“Singapore is a top Asian destination for tourists worldwide and having the newly added Special Collections on Street View will give tourists a first glance of what our city has to offer. Many people have told us that Street View helps them in their trip planning when they’re deciding places to visit while on holiday,” said Cynthia Wei, Google Asia-Pacific’s Street View programme manager.

Google is also teaming up with local running group JustRunLah! to map more nature trails around Singapore, capturing over 30 routes that cover more than 400km using Google’s Street View trekker.

“We’re looking forward to working closely with JustRunLah! to capture new imagery of running tracks that are off the beaten path and help get Singaporeans more active with Street View,” Ms Wei said.

Google Street View is available on the web and on Android and iOS platforms.

huizhen@sph.com.sg

The man who was injured in the car explosion at 290H Bukit Batok Street 24 yesterday (Apr 26) evening is believed to be the same man who devised an online scam to cheat people into transferring money to his bank accounts in 2015.

Stomp understands that the man is Dwight T Soriano. He had conned 34 victims of more than $30,000 in an online scam in 2015 and was jailed for 17 months.

The car explosion left the 32-year-old man with burns to his chest and limbs, as seen in a video taken by a Stomp contributor.

He was conscious when conveyed to Singapore General Hospital, a police spokesperson said, adding that portable butane gas canisters were also found at the scene.

Alex Soo, the owner of a car rental business, told Stomp in a telephone interview that Dwight had hired a Nissan from him. The Nissan had gone missing since Tuesday (Apr 25).

Alex subsequently posted a photo of his missing Nissan on various Facebook groups and appealed for help to locate it. From the photo he uploaded, the Nissan appears to be the same model as the one that exploded.

Alex also sent Stomp the police report he made at Tampines Neighbourhood Police Centre (NPC) yesterday afternoon (Apr 26). In the report, Alex told police officers that Dwight had rented a Nissan Dualis 2.0 to drive for Uber.

Dwight had paid a $400 deposit when he rented the vehicle on Monday (Apr 17) and would make a weekly payment of $420 for a month, the report stated.

It also stated that a man answered Dwight’s phone on Tuesday (Apr 25), saying he took back the phone he gave to Dwight and that the 32-year-old owed him $6,800.

This is the sequence of events, according to Alex.

Apr 17: Dwight rented a Nissan from Alex’s car rental business for $420 a week.

Apr 24: After Dwight failed to make his first payment, Alex contacted him at 11pm and Dwight said he would return the Nissan and make payment at 10.30am at Alex’s office in Ang Mo Kio the next day.

Apr 25: Dwight didn’t turn up at 10.30am. Alex called him at 11am and Dwight said he would be there at 4pm. He didn’t show up.

Alex called Dwight again at 11pm at night, and he said that a debtor picked up the phone. According to Alex, the debtor said that Dwight was an ex-convict and added that they would return the car together at 9am the next day.

Apr 26: Alex called Dwight’s phone at 9am and the debtor said only Dwight would be coming. At 9.30am, Dwight had not arrived, and Alex said that the debtor told him to make a police report.

At 10am, Alex posted appeals on various Facebook groups appealing to drivers to contact him if they spotted his missing Nissan. He then went to Dwight’s registered NRIC address in Tampines, and said that he saw a notice stuck outside the door saying that Dwight had not been living in the house for the last five years.

Feeling something was amiss, he went to Tampines NPC at around 12pm to file a police report.

At about 7pm, Alex received pictures from drivers on WhatsApp showing the aftermath of the car explosion at Bukit Batok. The vehicle involved looked similar to his Nissan that went missing. After getting the postal code of the location from one of them, he rushed to the scene. When he arrived at 7.30pm, the carpark had already been cordoned off by the police.

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