DPM Lawrence Wong at the Grand Opening Ceremony of the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Centre

Minister of Trade, Mr Ahn Duk Geun, Executive Chair of Hyundai Motor Group, Mr Chung Euisun, CEO of Hyundai Motor Company, Mr Chang Jae Hoon, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentleman,

I am very happy to be here today for the grand opening of the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Centre Singapore, or HMGICS. We are doing this on a wet rainy day in Singapore. But a rainy day is also a sign of good luck, so I think we are having this grand opening with a very auspicious sign.

Hyundai is a company which needs no introduction in Singapore. All of us know Hyundai from its cars, which have been in Singapore as early as 1980s. But it is probably less well known that Hyundai has also contributed to Singapore’s development in many other ways over the decades.

Hyundai started with land reclamation work in the 1980s, the first was at Pulau Tekong. It moved on to major engineering and construction projects such as the Jurong Rock Caverns and the Downtown Line. And it will also be supplying our trains for our latest MRT line, the Jurong Regional Line.

Today, I am glad that Hyundai’s presence in Singapore takes another leap forward with the opening of HMGICS. As Mr Chung said just now, this is not just a typical car factory, this is the first-of-its-kind Electric Vehicle (EV) assembly and innovation facility for Hyundai, truly an urban innovation centre.  And we are very happy that Singapore can host this cutting-edge innovation facility. So I also want to extend my warm congratulations to everyone in Hyundai Motor who has been involved in achieving this significant milestone. Congratulations for your efforts and hardwork.

Since Hyundai's first involvement in Singapore in the early 1980s, our economy has undergone significant changes. Singapore started out with low cost and labour-intensive industries. Over time, we restructured our economy. As our economy took off, the factors of production, be it rent or wages became more expensive, but we also progressively transformed and moved to higher-value and more knowledge and innovation-driven activities.

We saw this evolution in our automotive industry as well. Companies like Ford and Mercedes Benz used to assemble cars here, from the 1940s all the way up to 1980. But at a certain point, assembling cars no longer made economic sense in a high-cost location like Singapore. And that is why these factories, along with many other labour-intensive activities eventually moved out of Singapore, to lower cost locations. And this made way for higher value manufacturing activities like semi-conductors and electronics.

Now, quite unexpectedly, we see some high value automotive industries coming back to Singapore again because, as Minister Ahn said just now, there is a paradigm shift happening in the entire automotive industry. And the kind of activities we are seeing now are not the same kind of activities as we saw in the past.   Because EVs have a different supply chain compared to traditional cars with combustion engines. They rely less on mechanical parts, and contain more electronics and high value technologies. And that’s why global companies are able to undertake more of such activities out of Singapore, especially the kind of activities that are more innovation intensive. And many of these global companies are also working with our local suppliers to reconfigure supply chains for electric mobility. I am glad that HMGICS will also be doing so, partnering with the Singapore Business Federation and Singapore Manufacturing Federation to explore and identify collaborations with our local businesses.

Indeed, Hyundai Motor’s latest investment plays Singapore’s strengths in advanced manufacturing, digital technologies and innovation. This centre as you heard just now, adopts a different, experimental approach to EV assembly. It is highly automated, and yet flexible enough to accommodate the customisation of EVs. To do this, Hyundai intends to leverage AI, robots and autonomous guided vehicles, deployed alongside our workers. One example is in quality checks – which are a critical part of any manufacturing process. Traditionally, the way to check quality in a car factory is to rely on human inspection. But here at HMGICS, we have a robot dog called SPOT, which will take pictures of every angle of a car, and use AI to detect defects. This will allow for more comprehensive and consistent checks on the shop floor. As all of you know, Singapore is labour-tight, we don’t have enough workers. So workers don’t have to worry as there are still enough jobs around for them. We will reskill and upskill to make sure that workers can take on higher value jobs. So in Singapore, it is not about robots taking over humans, but humans and robots working together to create more value. Through experimental innovations like these, HMGICS aims to push the boundaries for EV manufacturing to pilot, testbed, and trial new technologies here in Singapore, as well as deploy and scale successful solutions to its factories around the world. I understand the centre is also studying with A*STAR and Nanyang Technological University on the possibility of working together on a Corporate Research Lab to assist these efforts. I fully encourage and support this collaboration. In fact, I think the companies should make full use of our research capabilities and talents. And so together, we can aspire to see more novel solutions being developed and piloted right here in Singapore.

This is a competitive area which Singapore can continue to excel and do well in. Not by doing more of the same thing, but continually innovating, experimenting, piloting new concepts and pushing the innovation frontier. And that’s in fact the shared vision that both Hyundai and Singapore have for this new centre. Together, we hope that we can push the boundaries, create new more value and exciting cutting-edge jobs for Singapore and play a role in developing new vehicles and solutions for the future.

To anchor all of these exciting possibilities in Singapore, we are developing platforms for innovation like this Jurong Innovation District, which is where we are at today. We aim to bring the right capabilities together all in one location, from cutting edge technologies such as robotics and AI, as well as highly skilled workers, so that Singapore can continue to be competitive and vibrant hub for advanced manufacturing, urban mobility and other fields.

Achieving all these will require close cooperation with our many partners. We are glad to have the long standing and strong partnership with Hyundai, which we are marking today. Meanwhile, there are many other Korean companies that are based here in Singapore. In fact, there are more than 1,000 South Korean companies operating from Singapore. And we hope this will pave the way for more Korean companies to use Singapore as a base to expand into the Southeast Asian region.

Of course, Singapore continues to stay open. We welcome investments and partners from all over the world, many of you in this room. We are acutely aware of the global competition for investments, especially in new and emerging technologies. And the turbulent world that we are in, with continued geopolitical rivalry makes the competition more intense. Governments are prepared to subsidise more to anchor key capabilities within their home countries or near to them. We will do our best to navigate this more challenging environment. We are always mindful of our limits, and we are very realistic. Singapore is just a small, tiny country. We don’t have natural resources or the wealth and capabilities in any other big countries have. But at the same time, we know that we have many things going for us. We are competitive, we are reliable, we are trusted, and we are continuing to see a healthy pipeline of investments, capital and talents here in Singapore. At the same time, the Asian growth story remain very much intact. So even in this turbulent world, Asia continues to grow, and this Asian growth story is not just about one or two economies, it is not just China, Korea or Japan. India is also emerging and Southeast Asia is also coming together as a stronger and more integrated region. And Singapore, at the heart of Asia, we will try our best to remain open and plug ourselves into all the different economies of the region so that we can be a reliable and trusted hub for the region and for the world.

Ultimately, we want Singapore to always be a place where people can come together to imagine new possibilities, and where the human spirit can always thrive.  And I am confident that, working together with all of you and our partners, we will be able to push the boundaries of what is possible, innovate for the world, and create many more exciting opportunities for the future.

So, on that note, let me once again congratulate Hyundai Motors on the opening of this facility and wish all of you the very best of success as we embark on this innovation journey together. Thank you very much.