PM Lee Hsien Loong at May Day Rally 2013

NTUC President Sister Diana Chia

Secretary-General Brother Lim Swee Say

Brothers and Sisters

A very happy May Day to all of you!

Over the last year, Singapore has continued to make steady progress. We have upgraded our environment and built many more HDB homes and housing estates. (Referring to slide of Punggol Waterway) This one is the Punggol waterway, part of our new Punggol 21 Plus coming up. We have upgraded our education system. (Referring to slide of ITE College Central) New ITE College Central has come up. These are the buildings, it looks a bit like a spaceship, but it is actually landed in Ang Mo Kio. (Referring to slide of Gardens by the Bay) We have completed Gardens by the Bay - clean, green, blue and green environment. The trees also look like they came from outer space. We could do this as our economy grew and as our incomes rose and as investments continued to come in. We received record investment commitments last year – $16 billion worth. And overall we created more jobs last year than the year before. We are creating so many jobs that we are worried that we do not have enough workers to go and fill them. At the same time, apart from the material things and physical things, we are also engaging Singaporeans to build a brighter future together, including through Our Singapore Conversation.

Overall, if you look at the numbers, our growth was lower. 1.3% - lower than we have become used to. It reflects our new phase. And as we mature, some slowing down is inevitable. When you are young, you sprint; when you are a little bit older, you jog; when you are older still, you brisk walk; but we keep on making progress. Our strengths give us confidence that we can continue to improve Singaporeans’ lives, and build a brighter future for all.

Last month, I had lunch with union leaders to prepare for this Rally. And I asked for their views – How are things? How do you feel? And I got some positive reports. For example, SMEEU (Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Employees’ Union) Brother Wong Weng Ong told me, all the books full, workers got generous bonuses last year. He was smiling. Of course he also knows there is competition, from the Chinese shipyards, from the Korean shipyards, and they have to work hard. FDAWU (Food, Drinks and Allied Workers Union) Brother Tan Hock Soon, he is also smiling. Manpower is tight, salaries in hotels are rising. But he knows, that unless the hotels adapt to this tighter labour market, it is not so easy for businesses to grow, it will not be possible for them to raise wages indefinitely.

The union leaders had concerns too. For example, concerns over older workers who are worried about living expenses, especially healthcare. Lower-wage workers, concerned about cost of living, wages not growing as fast as they would like. At the other end, the PMEs – the Professionals, Managers and Executives - watching the competition they are facing, looking for new opportunities to fulfil aspirations. These are all important issues which we have to address together.

These are not issues unique to Singapore. Other countries face similar challenges. Whole range of countries – look at Japan. Its workforce is ageing rapidly, shrinking. They are extending the retirement age. They have just extended it to 61; they are going to push it to 65 gradually, by 2025. In other words, more than ten years to get there. Older workers are not bad. Businesses value the experiences of older workers. More steady, more reliable, less likely to job hop. But they are also worried about the cost of pensions, of salaries and benefits. The younger colleagues, who are working with the older workers, have another thing to worry about. And the question is, is it polite or is it not polite, we go for drinks after dinner, or after work, should we invite the older workers to join us or not? Will it cramp the style of the younger workers?

America is recovering from the financial crisis, but its unemployment is still high – 7.6%. The economy has picked up some since the financial crisis, but many households still have not recovered. Incomes, wages have gone up, but the incomes are becoming much more unequal. All of the benefits since the financial crisis have gone to the top 1% of households. In fact, the top 1% of households in America got 120% of the gains since the financial crisis. In other words, things have got better at the top, they have gotten 120% of the gains. The balance of the 99% of society, in fact things got worse. They lost 20% because otherwise, how do you add up to one hundred (percent)? So, income is becoming much more unequal. Low wage workers in America, many people see their jobs as a dead end. And it is a very serious political problem for them. Not just an economic problem, but a political problem, because people lose confidence in the system, in the legitimacy of the system. And I was there last month, they talked about their anxieties, they asked us how we were solving our problem. I met Hillary Clinton, she is retired now, doing something else, but she asked, how is Singapore dealing with income inequality, how are you helping low wage workers? So I explained to her what we do with housing, with health care, with Workfare, all the schemes we are doing. But in the end I told her, we too are grappling with this problem, we too are comparing notes and looking for the best way to help our workers benefit from growth.

So, all countries have their challenges. Many are similar to ours, but there are also other problems which they have, which thankfully, we do not have. And one of them is unemployment, especially unemployment among young workers. In Singapore, if you graduate from ITE, or poly, or NUS, you can get a job almost straight away. Some get a job before they graduate, most get a job within 3-6 months. We take it for granted. In fact we shop around before we decide to choose which job we want to accept. But if we were in a different country, if our young people were in a different country, it would be quite different. In southern Europe, countries like Greece, Spain, even Italy, youth unemployment is sky-high. In fact, in Greece and Spain, 60% of young people are unemployed. And you have people who graduate from university in the twenties who cannot find jobs until they are thirty something years old. And by the time you are thirty something years old, it is very hard to start working. And I think their whole life, their whole career, would be blighted by these economic conditions. And many of them are leaving Greece and Spain, going to other European countries, the northern European countries, France, Germany, even Poland, looking for work. But even northern European countries have problems. Finland and Sweden, in Scandinavia - more than 20% of their young people are unemployed. People praise their economic model, Scandinavian model, they say good work life balance, not so much stress, good welfare, security, outstanding education system. After they graduate, 20% of their young people cannot find work. And the Swedes are even asking their unemployed young people to go to Greece to look for work, in a different country. So, we get no joy from other people’s problems, but I think we should see our own situation in perspective even while we acknowledge that Singapore is not perfect, and we have to do better. We are in better shape than others, and we are in a better position to improve Singaporeans’ lives. And the Government is determined to do that.

Everything we do is about making life better for our people, and especially for our workers. We are making progress on our infrastructure, whether it is housing, whether it is transportation. We are tackling population issues, including immigration and foreign workers. Very sensitive, very difficult to discuss, but we have to deal with them, otherwise we are going to have big problems coming to us. We are strengthening social safety nets, especially in housing, healthcare and education. And we also have targeted programs to help vulnerable workers to help themselves.

First, for older workers, we are trying hard to help them to work longer. Many want to work beyond 62, like this group of workers at the Xin Wang Café. And we encourage workers to work longer. So we have the Retirement and Reemployment Act that has come into effect. Beyond 62, employers have to offer reemployment to the workers for at least another three years to 65, and as DPM Teo said on Sunday, MOM surveys show that 98% of workers who reach the age of 62, get an offer to continue working and many of them do carry on working beyond 62. We encourage employers to do this, through a Special Employment Credit. So that the Government will subsidise part of the wages of the older workers who are above 50 years old, and we spend every year, $500 million doing this. And therefore, employers do not find it burdensome to keep the older workers, keep them active, keep them employed and so we have more older workers in jobs and their employment rate in Singapore is higher than most countries and improving faster than most countries as Brother Swee Say pointed out just now in his charts. But 65 is not the end. I know many workers want to continue even beyond 65, and the Government encourages this too. I think we should see how the Retirement and Reemployment Act works out, give it some time, settle down, and then progressively we will do more. We need to and we will. It will depend on worker’s health; it will depend on the nature of their jobs and on the company’s needs. We cannot go for a ‘one size fits all’ policy, just pushing up the retirement age, or compelling employers to hire all workers regardless of the conditions. Some people can work beyond 70, health permitting. Hospital workers, many are employed, reemployed. Taxi drivers, quite a number are now reaching 70 and carrying on a couple of years, and asking for permission to carry on for another couple of years after that. And if they can, we will find ways to help people to work longer. But others for various reasons will not be able to. So we cannot be ‘one size fits all’, we have to take a practical approach to enable as many as possible to continue working for as long as possible. On our part, workers need to be flexible - flexible about job responsibilities and status. If you have to adjust to a slightly different job, learn new skills; make the effort, do that. Go for training, master the new skills. Stay fit and healthy so that we can do the work. Because apart from skills, apart from attitude, whether you are healthy or not, whether you are fit or not, I think that makes a big difference in your ability to fit in and adapt. Beyond the Retirement and Reemployment Act, and beyond the Special Employment Credit, we are also helping older workers in many other ways. For example with GST vouchers, with generous Medisave top ups, with WorkPro - grants which encourage employers to hire and retain mature workers. And we are fundamentally reviewing our social policies, especially healthcare and housing. I think it is right that we take care of this older generation. Because this is not just any older generation, but I think this is a special older generation, the one which helped to build today’s Singapore and I think they deserve something and they deserve to be remembered.

The second group we are paying special attention to are lower-wage workers. We will improve their lives too, and not leave them behind. We have enhanced Workfare so that when they work, they receive a top up to their pay and CPF which is almost 30%, particularly for the older ones. We have the Inclusive Growth Programme, to upgrade 100,000 lower wage workers. We have the Progressive Wage approach which we are doing together with NTUC. To raise salaries, especially of the low wage group, by enlarging the jobs, upgrading the skills, and raising productivity, including using technology, so that workers will have a more decent starting pay - and you saw Swee Say’s pictures just now, a wage ladder which they can climb up progressively. And we have incorporated the progressive model into the Government’s regulations for the cleaning sector, and we will do that also for the security industry and we will take the lead in best-sourcing. So that we set the example, and establish a market norm so the lower-wage workers can have a decent job and prospects for improvement if they make the effort. And NTUC is working with companies to roll this out in 12 industry sectors.

The third group is the PMEs. Not low wage, not elderly, but a growing group and I think we must also pay attention to them. We are making workplaces more fair and inclusive through TAFEP, the Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices. But apart from fair employment, I think PMEs also want more support and representation from the unions. And I support this; I think this is right, I think the unions should do this. Traditionally the unions represent rank-and-file workers, and once upon a time, the rank-and-file workers were the majority. Two-thirds of our workforce were bargainable, rank-and-file. Now as we upgrade, the situation is reversing. More and more workers are in the PME category, rank-and-file proportions coming down. By 2030, that means about 17 years from now, PMEs will be two thirds of the workforce and rank-and-file only one third. And I think unions have to adjust, our labour management relations have to shift. I am confident that the unions can effectively represent the interest of more PMEs. Today the PMEs make up about a quarter of union membership. It is not bad, but can do better. The tripartite partners are studying how to do this, I encourage them to come up with constructive measures and the Government will be happy to put them into effect.

But government transfers or protection cannot be the fundamental basis on which we improve our lives. At the end of my lunch with the union leaders a few weeks ago I asked them if there is one thing you want me to say at the May Day Rally, and brother Kumar, of the AUPDRW, the AUP Daily Rated Workers Union, told me the most important thing workers want is just “raise our wages”. That is the single most critical thing. And he is right. And it is not just the DREs who are concerned about this. It is important that we earn more, that we produce more, that we become more prosperous. And that is why I say we must grow our economy. Because unless we grow our economy, you cannot raise workers’ wages. It becomes a zero sum game, if I raise this group of workers’ wages, I must reduce somebody else’s salaries, or companies must accept lower profits. Or the Government must print money, run a deficit, and that is not a win-win solution, it is not a sustainable solution. But if we can grow the economy, produce more, become more prosperous, we can distribute; everybody can have a share, and everybody will be better off.

How to grow the economy? Three things – first, we need to attract quality investment, create better jobs; secondly, we need to raise productivity, restructure the domestic economy; and thirdly, we must invest in our future, in our people.

So first of all, attracting quality investments and creating jobs. That is how we have made jobs and prosperity over the last 40-50 years. And now we are transforming the economy and upgrading ourselves. Investment is still critical as a way to do that. But different investments - higher skill, higher value-added, less manpower intensive, less land intensive. Investments which are not just stand alone projects but which benefit our wider economy. Take for example, the Rolls-Royce project in Seletar. Rolls-Royce has been in Singapore for 60 years since the 1950s. First they had a business office, then they did MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul). Last year, they opened the Seletar Campus in the Seletar Aerospace Park, and they are producing the latest fan blades, for the latest aircraft engines. They are called wide chord fan blades - very high-tech, very sophisticated, very skilled work. It is the only factory which Rolls-Royce has outside of their head office in Derby where they are doing this. And this is a picture of the Singaporean workers working on the engines. They make the fan blades, they assemble and test the engines, the engines are fitted onto Airbus, the new 380s, including the SIA Airbuses. They employ mostly local workers, highly skilled ones, paid well, top quartile of pay. Presently 650 workers, going up to 770 by the end of this year, and 85% of them are local. They are trained in Singapore. We gave them good training, good training in our ITEs, in our polys, in our universities. They graduated, Rolls-Royce hired them, gave them further training, took them to Derby in UK. The Singapore Government co-funded the training, they spent months in Derby, they learnt the skills, they came back, they started the factory in Singapore. They not only applied what they learnt, but they improved on what the British workers are doing in the UK and they made innovations in Singapore which Rolls-Royce has taken back and is applying back in the headquarters in Derby. So machining at high speed, processing the fan blade, the techniques, the efficiency, the productivity. We are not only at the leading edge; we are moving forward beyond the leading edge, and becoming the leaders in this business. And Rolls-Royce is not just doing business for itself. It is generating business for SMEs which supply the components, for logistics companies which ship the parts and the engines in and out of Singapore. So investments are important, investments are good, and we have to continue to welcome quality investments like Rolls-Royce.

We can do that because our international standing is high with investors. In New York, recently, I had dinner with the group which calls themselves “G100”, 100 CEOs of companies. They invited me to speak to them, it was a closed door session, but they wanted to know about Singapore, they wanted to know about Asia, about the region around us, particularly about China. The CEOs admired Singapore. They want to know how we are staying competitive, whether we will continue to be attractive to their businesses, a good place for them to invest and expand. We cannot take our high standing for granted. The competition for investments is growing. China is one big destination, Vietnam is another destination. UWEEI recently visited Vietnam. Brother Richard Tan who was at lunch with me told me about it. They saw for themselves how hardworking the Vietnamese workers were. And here is a bunch of these Vietnamese workers learning in a technical institute how to do electrical work. The UWEEI group visited Ho Chi Minh City, and they saw a Saigon Hi-Tech Park. We have a project in Ho Chi Minh City, called the VSIP – Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park – quite successful. But the Vietnamese are developing their own Hi-Tech Park, to compete with VSIP. Because they will learn from us, but they want to outdo us, and they are attracting hi-tech investments to the Saigon Hi-Tech Park. And they have got good workers who are hardworking, who are hungry, who are bright, who will be attractive if they get their whole system right. I think there is still some distance to go, but they want to eat our lunch.

So we have to be very careful as we change policy, as we navigate this shift, as we tighten up on foreign workers. We cannot have too many foreign workers, we have to manage the numbers, but we have to be very careful as we tighten up. Because business costs will go up, it will become harder for companies to operate here, our competitiveness can be affected, our cost of living can be affected. Because wages go up, costs go up, prices will follow. And we have to make sure we watch our competitiveness, and we do not overdo things. Likewise when we tighten up on PMETs; we have to adjust, we need to, we need to introduce safeguards for Singaporean PMETs. But if we make it too difficult for companies to get the skills and talent which they need here, they will go elsewhere. And I think that would be disastrous for our PMETs, for our workers, for our families and for Singapore. We have to stay an attractive place to do business. Investors are watching us closely. When they talk to me, they ask me general questions about the region and competitiveness and our policy on foreign workers. When they talk to EDB, they are more direct. They ask EDB - is this tightening of foreign workers a fundamental shift in outlook? Are you still welcoming investments? Are you still pro-business? Do you still want us to come? Because if not, then let us not waste time talking to each other. So we must not send the wrong signal that Singa¬pore no longer welcomes business, or is turning away talent. We have spent many, many decades nurturing this reputation for reliability, for openness. We have made a name for ourselves; not necessarily the cheapest place, but a competitive and dynamic city that is worth paying a premium for, and we must keep that reputation because otherwise, we are dead.

So the first thing we must do to grow our economy, is to continue to bring in good investments, so that we can restructure and upgrade. But secondly, even existing companies must restructure, must improve productivity, to achieve quality growth. And this is work both for the companies and for the workers. It is not easy to do this. It takes a long time, you have to do it company by company, and you have to make the effort step by step, bit by bit, one percent at a time. We have been working at it for many years. In the last few years, productivity has not been that spectacular; in fact since the financial crisis it has been mostly flat. But we know that this effort takes time, and we know that we can do better. How do we know? If you compare ourselves with the best countries in the world – the global leaders - US, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden. We are only 70% of where they are now. We are not the leading edge yet, generally speaking. And in construction and in F&B, we are even further behind. But if we persevere, if we press on in this, we will succeed. The Government is supporting this in many ways. This year’s Budget had a Quality Growth Programme to help businesses upgrade, create better jobs and share the productivity gains with employees. We have made productivity roadmaps for different industry sectors. We are building new Continuing Education and Training campuses. The two new campuses will be ready this year - the East Campus coming up at Paya Lebar and the West Campus at Jurong Lake District. These are not office buildings; these are CET centres for training workers, to make sure they can take advantage of the opportunities we are creating. So companies and workers must seize these opportunities, join these programmes, make it. It can be done.

I give you one example to add to Swee Say’s just now. This is a company called Udders. Not O-T-H-E-R-S but U-D-D-E-R-S. It is a local ice cream company, Udders. They make artisan ice creams one pot by one pot, you finish eating I make the new one, just in time, so it is always fresh, always delicious. And we have Gula Melaka and Mao Shan Wang Durian ice cream. They have a problem. It is artisan, it is handmade, supply cannot keep up with demand. As Lim Swee Say’s pictures just now, left hand triangle smaller than right hand triangle. So how to overcome this supply-cannot-meet-demand situation? Why is it? Because every batch of ice cream, somebody has to stir manually, to make the batch of ice cream. Very intensive, too slow. So they got SPRING and IRAS to help them. SPRING gave them a Capability Development Grant; IRAS, they are entitled to a Productivity & Innovation Credit, claim a tax credit. So they automated the process, they made water-cooled ice-cream making machines, the pasteurisation machine was also automated. So now they work in a factory, in a kitchen, the staff costs have gone down by half, the utility bill has gone down, the workers share the gains through a profit-sharing scheme. Unfortunately, I do not think we are having Udders ice cream for lunch, but next year we will have that together with Jumbo crabs!

So the second thing we must do to grow, is productivity restructuring, upgrading. The third thing we do, is beyond these individual, micro, company by company efforts, the whole economy, our whole society must be dynamic, must be forward-looking. If we become old, if we become like a retirement home or like a holiday village, I think we are finished. So our third strategy – invest in our people, invest in the future. Nobody can predict the future, but I think some trends are clear. Internet and IT will continue to transform how we live, work and communicate with one another. Technology is going to restructure industries and jobs. Robots are getting cheaper, safer, easier to operate. And it is not just the developed countries which are using robots, even developing countries are having robots. Foxconn, Fu Shi Kang, the big outsourcing company which is in China, they have a plan to introduce one million robots in China! Because even in China, they want to raise productivity, and they are running short of workers, and they are going to have one million robots. So our competition is not the Chinese worker, it is the Chinese robot. And the Chinese robot is not just making components for iPhones and iPads, it is even making la mian! And here you see the robot slicing the la mian into the soup. So, it is competition but it is also opportunity for us to use this technology to raise our productivity and improve the lives of our workers. 3D printing, to print spare parts, even maybe artificial organs, just as we print a document today. Swee Say showed you one big printer just now, let me show you a cute little one. This one is called “The Cube”, it is a 3D printer, and you see all the things down there, next to “The Cube”, those were printed. You just press one button, and the thing comes out. So we must master all this and we are investing in this. So our programme, “Future of Manufacturing”, we are spending $500m over five years to develop these capabilities - 3D printing, robotics - to create opportunities for companies and jobs for Singaporeans, so you can be the operators for the robots, you can be the material scientist, and to benefit the SMEs and the blue-collar workers as well. Just like the previous times, our SMEs and our blue-collar workers moved up, and followed the technology and mastered it. In services, we have a programme for the “Future of Services”, creating new industries like big data analytics, consumer insights. Big data analytics means you take all the information you have - whom you have been SMSing, where your iPhone has been going, what you have been ordering online - putting together a picture, making it useful to you, helping you to live a better life, helping to adapt the products to you, and learning about the societies we are in.

Procter & Gamble (P&G) is doing this, they are setting up something in Singapore, a campus, using consumer insights to outsmart its competitors. P&G makes consumer products - shampoo, detergent, shavers - the sort of thing we would have used this morning before coming to the Rally, all of us, household things. Very big company, they are already in Singapore, but they are building a Singapore Innovation Centre to do research. What are they researching? Asian consumer tastes and needs. What do Asian populations like, what do they use, what do they need. Their skin is different, their texture is different, their colour is different, their taste is different. So when you are looking for cosmetics, when you are looking for soap, when you are looking for shampoo, it has to adapt to the Asian markets, customised beauty products; so skincare, perfumes that appeal to Asian consumers. So this lady is developing perfumes for the Asian market. And they are putting it in Singapore, I am going to open it later this year. Jobs for Singaporeans. And the P&G Chairman Bob MacDonald told me, Singapore is the best place to host this because of our connections in Asia, because we have strong research capabilities, because we have highly-educated workers and we have good IPR protection. So come to Singapore. He is happy, I am very happy; I think all of us should be happy too.

But the most important investment in our future is education. We have built a first class education system in Singapore, from primary schools to secondary schools to ITEs, polys, universities. And now we are putting the effort into pre-primary; start young, to build the pre-primary education sector. We are going to continue to enhance our system. The pre-primary is one end. The other end, providing more university places, upgrading our polys and our specialist institutions, like DigiPen, like all the partners which the SIT are working with. ITE, you saw a picture earlier, of ITE Central, I visited the site in March and they showed me around. It is an excellent campus, with relevant programmes and dedicated staff. Here I am looking at a group of kids doing Digital Animation - drawing the cartoons, putting them into the computer, joining up the pictures, doing all the leg work, spending hours and hours so that when you go and watch a movie, some part of that movie was done by Singaporeans, trained in Singapore. The facilities are good, the teachers are dedicated, enthusiastic, and even students from other ITEs in Singapore hoping to move to ITE Central. And the graduates are highly sought after. One of their popular courses is Aerospace Technology. They have an aircraft hangar in Ang Mo Kio, and they have got real airplanes at the aircraft hangar, including a real Boeing 737, parked in Ang Mo Kio! I put this picture on my Facebook page, and some of the people who commented says, “wu ngyah bo ngyah” (Hokkien for “is this for real”?), this must be photoshopped! It is not photoshopped, it is a real picture. It is really, truly, you can go and see it, we will arrange a visit. Why? It is for real training, hands on training, to prepare our people, so that they can be ready for the future, and we will continue to invest in our education system, and in our people. If one day you need an Airbus 380 to train, we will find an Airbus 380 to train as well!

The union movement has to be at the centre of all these changes we are making. We cannot have a strong economy without a strong labour movement. Over the decades, our workers and our unions have helped to build and to modernise our economy, and brought us here. We will have our problems from time to time, labour-management problems, even with the best labour management relations, even with a strong tripartite relationship. Like the illegal bus strikes last year; I think they were a timely reminder of tripartism. I think it is also a useful signal that we will not tolerate illegal action, or any party undermining our industrial harmony. It does not matter how things happen overseas. You may have strikes, you may have riots, you may have demonstrations when you have unhappiness. In Singapore, if there is a problem, let us find out early about it, let us talk about it, let us nip it in the bud, resolve it harmoniously, and if necessary, through arbitration, let us do this in a mature, adult way, which is constructive and helps us to move forward together. Each of us have to do our part to strengthen tripartism. We need strong unions and union leaders to represent and fight for the interests of workers, but fight intelligently; to persuade workers to support policies which benefit them, even if they hurt in the short term; to work good constructive relations with the other tripartite partners. That is why the Government has always unfailingly supported the unions and the NTUC over now 50 years, since its founding in 1961, so that workers can have a sense of ownership, of strength through unity, of solidarity, of being equal partners with business and the Government.

We need responsible employers too. First of all, please operate successful businesses, we want your businesses to do well. If your business does not do well, you cannot help your workers. Invest in your workers, promote fair and merit-based employment practices, and be part of the prosperity we are creating together. We need a pro-labour and pro-Singaporean Government to protect workers’ interests, to foster growth, to make sure that everyone benefits from prosperity. That is what our tripartite partnership has always been about. We must strengthen the trust and understanding that underpin this relationship. We have built it up over many years of shared sacrifice and toil. Let us strengthen it, never lose it, this is our treasure which keeps us safe and strong and ahead.

Despite all the challenges we have, I think we have a bright future. We have strengths that others lack, whether it is our workforce, whether it is our international reputation, whether it is the reserves which we have husbanded and put away. We are in a vibrant region, with neighbours who are making steady progress, and who are keen to partner us, to prosper with us. We have successfully transformed ourselves many times before. Each time it is tough, each time you make the effort, each time we emerge successful and stronger. So let us stand shoulder to shoulder, trust in one another to overcome our challenges, and work hard in hand to maximise our potential, and build a brighter future for ourselves and our children.

Happy May Day to all of you!