SINGAPORE: A S$400 million Hyundai innovation centre in Singapore focusing on future mobility research and development is set to be completed by the end of 2022. 

The facility will develop new automotive technologies, including for the production of electric cars, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the virtual groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday (Oct 13).

Named the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Centre (HMGICS), the facility could produce up to 30,000 vehicles per year by 2025.

“Siting the facility here takes advantage of Singapore’s strengths, for example in advanced manufacturing and logistics,” said Mr Lee.  

Located in the Jurong Innovation District, the centre will also be able to pilot new manufacturing models to meet the demand for mass personalisation of cars through small-scale factories in urban areas.

“Singapore has also been developing our plans for autonomous and electric vehicle research and development,” said Mr Lee.  “I am glad that Hyundai has invested in a joint venture, Motional, which conducts R&D and our autonomous vehicle trials here.”

In August, Motional – a joint venture by Hyundai and self-driving technology firm Aptiv – said it would continue to hire in Singapore despite the COVID-19 downturn.

In his speech on Tuesday, Mr Lee said the new centre was “an important milestone” for the economic relationship between Singapore and South Korea.

“It will pave the way for more Korean companies to invest here, partner with local suppliers and SMEs, and collaborate with our universities and research institutes,” he said.

READ: Hyundai self-driving joint venture rebrands, to continue hiring in Singapore despite COVID-19 downturn

Said Mr Sung Yun-mo, the Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy: “Korea and Singapore have cooperated on multiple fronts and the HMGICS represents a new milestone in the continuing collaboration between our two nations.

“The key to this collaboration will lie in finding ways to bring together our respective strengths.”

The innovation centre will be home to the Hyundai group’s research and development experts from around the world. But the collaboration will go beyond the group and into the Singaporean innovation ecosystem, said Hyundai. 

Singapore universities, startups and research institutes including Nanyang Technological University – Hyundai’s first local academic research partner – will also collaborate through the open innovation lab. 

“Singapore’s goal is to have all our vehicles run on cleaner energy by 2040,” said Mr Lee. 

Having the first electronic vehicle manufacturing facility in Singapore shows that it is “taking another step to anchor the value chain”, he added.

Chairman of the Singapore Economic Development Board Dr Beh Swan Gin said that the new centre will introduce “important new capabilities in areas such as electric vehicles and urban air mobility” and will “create new opportunities for Singaporeans”. 

Meanwhile, JTC CEO Mr Tan Boon Khai said the Jurong Innovation District is “shaping up well as a top-tier innovation ecosystem, with many top multinational giants joining in recent years”. 

“We will continue to bring together the best in advanced manufacturing and change the way all stakeholders collaborate to build the future of this industry,” Mr Tan added. 

CUSTOMERS CAN WATCH CARS BEING MANUFACTURED

Customers visiting the centre will be able to customise and purchase vehicles online using their smartphones, said Hyundai in a media release. 

With Hyundai’s on-demand technology, customers can then watch their car being manufactured. 

When the car is ready for delivery, it will be transferred to a 620m-long Sky Track, located at the top of the centre’s seven-storey innovation lab, for test drives. 

Additionally, the facility will have a landing port for Urban Air Mobility, as well as solar panels to provide the site with clean renewable energy. 

SINGAPORE: Four Indonesian men have been arrested and charged with unlawful entry into Singapore, the Singapore Police Force said in a news release on Tuesday (Oct 13).

The men were first detected on Tuas Reclaimed Land at about 8.30pm on Oct 9 by the Police Coast Guard via its surveillance systems. 

They were observed to have jumped off an unnumbered boat into the waters off Tuas Reclaimed Land before swimming towards the shore, the authorities said. 

Officers from the Police Coast Guard, Jurong Police Division, Gurkha Contingent, Special Operations Command and Home Team Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Unit then responded to intercept the men, authorities added.

The men were arrested within five hours from the time of detection.  

All four were charged in court on Oct 10 with unlawful entry into Singapore, which carries a jail term of up to six months and a minimum three strokes of the cane. 

The suspects have been handed over to the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority for further investigations, said police.

Police Coast Guard Commander, Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police Cheang Keng Keong said: “The officers’ vigilance and excellent team work which resulted in the swift arrest are highly commendable. 

“PCG will spare no efforts and will continue to take firm action against such offenders to safeguard our waters and sea borders against crime and security threats, including unauthorised entry into and departure from Singapore.”

SINGAPORE: Earlier this year, Benjamin Ang started rearing his own chickens at a community space on Henderson Road; he wanted fresh eggs and premium chickens bred in what he feels are humane conditions.

Valued for their superior meat, the French chickens he rears — poulet de Bresse — are among the world’s most expensive chickens.

A frozen Bresse costs between S$50 and S$70 each, compared with about S$4 for a regular frozen grill chicken that one can find at a supermarket.

“(Bresse) chicken has been described as the queen of poultry and the poultry for kings. They’ve been bred specifically for their flavour and texture of the meat,” said Ang.

“If you’re looking at the quality of the meat or the experience of something different, then I’d say it’s definitely worthwhile.”

Bresse chickens command premium prices as they require more personal space, and a third of their diet consists of naturally foraged earthworms, insects and grass.

These days, chickens come with many labels, such as corn-fed, free-range and organic, with each variety promising to be environmentally friendlier, healthier and tastier than your average chicken.

But all these labels may lead you to wonder what “antibiotic-free” or “probiotics-fed” really means. And how do these varieties affect the meat’s nutritional value? The programme Talking Point finds out six things you should know when buying chicken.

1. WHAT DO THE LABELS MEAN?

100 per cent organic: To be certified, these poultry must be reared with no antibiotics, provided with 100 per cent organic feed and given access to the outdoors.

For example, Ryan’s Grocery co-founder Wendy Foo said the organic chickens it sells are from Australia, and when they are sick, essential oils are administered to them, instead of antibiotics.

Antibiotic residue-free: Antibiotics have been administered to these chickens but are removed from their feed a few days before they are slaughtered, so that there is no residue left in the meat when it is processed.

Probiotics-fed: Instead of antibiotic growth promoters, said Kee Song Food Corporation (Singapore) head of business development James Sim, these chickens are fed with probiotics.

In the case of the company’s flagship product, Lacto Chicken, they are fed on lactobacillus to enhance their immune system.

WATCH: Is it safe to eat chicken reared with antibiotics? (2:31)

Free-range: The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) generally permits this term to be used if the chickens have access to the outdoors for at least some part of the day.

The USDA has no provision, however, for the duration spent outside or the amount of space provided.

As for kampung chickens, they are a breed of chickens, Foo points out. Originally free-range, they are now highly likely to be farmed in cages.

Factory-farmed: Although not labelled as such, these are the most common chickens sold in supermarkets. Known as broilers, they are bred for meat production.

Kept in cages where the living conditions are typically “not as hygienic”, they are fed with antibiotics “so that they stay healthy”, said Foo.

2. WILL THE ANTIBIOTICS HARM ME?

Antibiotics are used globally by the livestock industry to prevent and treat infectious bacterial diseases, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) said on its website.

Nonetheless, poultry treated with antibiotics “may not be processed for food until a specified withdrawal period has been observed to allow antibiotic residues to be sufficiently cleared from the system”.

The SFA prescribes maximum residue levels (MRLs) “so that we know that the chicken we buy is safe for consumption”, said William Chen, the director of Nanyang Technological University’s food science and technology programme.

There is a strict inspection scheme to ensure that drug residues do not exceed those levels, the professor added.

Just last month, the SFA suspended the import of live chickens from a farm in Malaysia after detecting drug residues exceeding MRLs in samples collected from a consignment of the farm’s chickens.

All imported and local food products are subject to regular inspections and sampling, including for harmful bacteria.

The chances of antibiotic-resistant bacteria going into chicken flesh are also “very low”, as these bacteria are typically found in the bird’s digestive system, said Chen.

“When we cook the chicken, the bacteria — whether they’re antibiotic-resistant or not — will be killed off. So consumers shouldn’t be overly worried about eating chicken bought from the supermarket or wet market.”

3. HOW DOES THE CHICKEN’S DIET AFFECT ITS MEAT?

The texture of the meat depends on the feed, said Foo. For example, meat from chickens fed with bromelain, a digestive enzyme extracted from pineapples, is leaner and firmer as well as lower in fat and cholesterol, she cited.

What an animal eats has an effect on its fat. “That’s where you’re getting a lot of flavour from,” Annie King, from the Department of Animal Science at the University of California, Davis, told the magazine Popular Science.

But not all flavours the animal eats will be carried over into the meat, as some compounds will be metabolised before they make it to the fat, the magazine reported.

4. DOES THE FEED AFFECT THE NUTRITIONAL VALUE?

Regardless of what the chickens eat, the formulation of the feed is such that it provides certain amounts of nutrition.

Farmers would calculate the proportions of raw materials to provide, say, the energy levels the chickens “require for their functional maintenance”, said poultry health expert Lynn Tan.

Some chickens are fed with grains such as brown rice or quinoa, as these ingredients’ “purported health benefits” are well known to consumers.

“This could trigger a positive psychological effect in the consumer,” said the veterinary practitioner. “But in actual fact, it doesn’t increase the fibre content of chicken meat … It’s just a marketing aspect that people need to be aware of.”

She added that she “wouldn’t pay that much more” for chickens fed on brown rice, corn and soya, “because I know that. ultimately, the nutritional formulation will be the same as a typical commercially-fed chicken”.

5. WHY ARE PREMIUM CHICKENS COSTLIER?

A Bromelain-fed chicken costs about S$19 per kilogramme, while a cage-free corn-fed and soya-fed chicken costs about S$23. A 100 per cent free-roaming, organic chicken costs S$42/kg.

They cost a premium because antibiotic growth promoters are usually not administered to them, so they take longer to reach the ideal size for slaughter.

For example, it takes at least 56 days for a free-range chicken and 81 days for an organic one, compared to 40-odd days for a broiler chicken.

Then there is the amount of space given. Organic chickens get the most space, at about 10 chickens per square metre; free-range chickens at about 12 chickens per sq m; and conventional broilers at about 17 chickens per sq m.

Some premium chickens are also fed with slightly more premium feeds, like corn, soya, organic feed, brown rice and probiotics.

6. WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF POULTRY FARMING?

There is a growing number of poultry farmers in Singapore, Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries who are switching to farming without the use of antibiotic growth promoters, and on a larger scale, said Sim.

This is to give consumers a healthier choice “in terms of good-quality protein”.

His chickens even roam in barns with piped music, namely classical music.

“It’s a way to promote a calmer and … less stressful environment. If they don’t feel so much stress, they grow up healthier and their meat is a bit tenderer,” he said.

Watch this episode of Talking Point here. New episodes on Channel 5 every Thursday at 9.30pm.

SINGAPORE: The employment relationship between employers and foreign domestic workers, or FDWs for short, is a labyrinthine maze many fail to navigate.

The average man on the street may assume employers and FDWs generally share a tumultuous relationship, with his perception shaped and reinforced by media reports which, from time to time, highlight misdemeanours committed by employers and FDWs against each other as part of regular news coverage of charges prosecuted in court and the sentence meted out.

Over the past year, several high-profile convictions of employers who had abused their FDWs were reported in the media, with the most recent being an employer who had inflicted such unbearable abuse on a FDW, the latter risked her life by climbing 15 floors down from her employer’s housing unit to the ground floor to escape further beatings.

There were also corresponding reports of sentences meted out to FDWs who had committed offences against their employers or dependents under their charge.

SURVEYS SHOW HIGH LEVEL OF SATISFACTION

These reports may have given many the impressions that the relationship between employers and FDWs is a necessarily tense and uneasy one, where both parties are on tenterhooks, constantly on the lookout for potential wrongdoings from each other. The truth couldn’t be further.   

In 2017, the Centre for Domestic Employees (CDE) undertook a large-scale study involving 1,004 employers of FDWs and 1,012 FDWs to understand the FDW landscape in Singapore. Among our findings, 75 per cent of FDWs surveyed said they were satisfied with working in Singapore and 70 per cent of them enjoyed cordial relationships with their employers.

It is CDE’s longstanding position that a harmonious employer-FDW relationship is key in ensuring FDWs have a home away from home while employers receive good help from them.

In a study of 30 FDWs conducted by CDE and students from NUS Chua Thian Poh Community Leadership Centre in 2018 to 2019, we found that a respectful and harmonious relationship between employers and FDWs has been the most crucial factor that lead to the successful completion of employment contracts, even ahead of whether FDWs have requisite skills for the job and how similar Singapore’s culture is to their home countries’.

This further underlines the importance of employers and FDWs getting along well with each other. Contract completion would translate into employers spending less time and money seeking replacement FDWs.

This begets the question: What can employers and FDWs do to build strong harmonious relationships?

CDE believes this can be done by strengthening the psychological contract between employers and FDWs, and ensuring that violations of trust and breaches of psychological contracts do not occur. 

The Manpower Ministry’s announcement on Monday (Oct 5) it will review the framework for the illegal deployment of FDWs is to be welcomed but beyond the letter of the law, employers’ best interests are served if they focus on developing a productive, trusting working relationship with their domestic worker.

READ: Commentary: Can foreign domestic workers help with chores in homes of close family members?

LISTEN: Can foreign domestic workers do extra chores? The dos, don’ts and difficult areas

THEPSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT

A psychological contract is a collection of an individual’s beliefs about the terms and conditions in a reciprocal exchange relationship between two individuals, often, in an employment setting.

Different from an explicit contract, psychological contract is perceptual and comprises perceived obligations and unspoken beliefs of entitlements between employers and employees.

In other words, it is an employee’s beliefs and perceptions of what they owe to their employers and what their employers owe to them, and vice versa.

These perceived beliefs underlie social exchange relationships and form norms of reciprocity where employers and employees discharge their obligations towards each in anticipation of reciprocal benefits that they believe they are entitled to.

The concept of psychological contract has been widely applied to study employment relationships in organisations. 

Extensive research in Singapore and around the world consistently demonstrate that violations of psychological contract, perceived or otherwise, lead to negative outcomes such as decreased obligations, reduced commitment, lower satisfaction, and reduced extra-role behaviours like being helpful or acceptance of additional responsibilities without fuss both ways.  

UNCLEAR EXPECTATIONS

Given the nature of migrant domestic work, understanding psychological contracts and how breaches could lead to a relationship breakdown between employers and FDWs can help uncover early warning signs and help alert employers and FDWs when mediation may be a better course of action.

Like psychological contracts between any employers and employees in every other organisation, employers and FDWs may have a different understanding and interpretation of their obligations and what they perceived as reciprocal benefits.

For instance, a FDW may perceive uninterrupted adequate rest (say six to eight hours) at night as part of reciprocal benefit for having performed a full day of household chores and caregiving duties.

This expectation could have been formed when they were briefed by their employment agents on rest arrangements or during conversations with fellow FDWs.

READ: Commentary: Worst time ever to be an overseas Filipino worker

READ: The Big Read: Solving Singapore’s foreign workers problem requires serious soul searching, from top to bottom

An employer, however, may expect the FDW to continue caregiving throughout the night, especially if the family has a disabled elderly or a young child.

The employer may expect the FDW to change the child’s diaper or give the child a drink of milk in the middle of the night.

The FDW might not perform such duties well because she may perceive these duties as beyond her obligations and as encroaching into her perceived entitled benefits.

When this happens, the employer might interpret the FDW’s poor performance of caregiving duties at night as failure to discharge what the employer believes as the FDW’s job obligations.

This might lead to the FDW being reprimanded for poor work ethics or worse still, the curtailment of other perceived benefits such as the use of mobile phones.

Over time, repeated incidents could lead to a downward spiral in the relationship between employer and FDW as they both believe that it’s the other who has violated the unspoken psychological contract between them.

Other instances where discrepancies arise include whether FDWs should perform household chores before they leave for their off-day or after they return home, plus the quantity and type of food that FDWs are provided with.

STRENGTHENING BONDS THROUGH OPEN COMMUNICATIONS AND TRUST

Trust is the bulwark against the negative spiralling of a relationship. Research has shown that trust in social relationships will influence people’s behaviours towards each other.

When employers and FDWs both trust each other, they are less likely to make negative attributions about each other’s intent and actions and bean-count.

Should there be instances where violations in psychological contracts have taken place, employers and FDWs in high trust relationship are less likely to react negatively towards each other.

CDE believes the best way to build trust is for employers and FDWs to have clear and explicit communications to reduce hidden assumptions and unspoken expectations about what their perceived obligations and entitled benefits are. This is especially important when the needs of the family changes.

READ: Commentary: There is no shame in being a Tiger Parent

READ: Commentary: You don’t have to age and grow frail alone. Nurses have your back

Clear and explicit communications from employer to the FDW about changing job scopes is critical in ensuring that FDWs do not perceive those changes as a violation of the psychological contract.

Employers and FDWs need to find a way to maintain an open channel of communications and have a clear understanding of what each other’s psychological contracts are. This will help employers and FDWs build strong lasting employment relationships that benefit both parties. 

Shamsul Kamar is Executive Director at the Centre for Domestic Employees.