Release No.: 16/SEP 03-l/92/09/16

SPEECH BY MR MAH BOWTAN, MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS, AT THE CEREMONYTO CELEBRATETHE PASSING OF THE 10 MILLION GRT MARK BY THE SHIP REGISTRY ON WEDNESDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER1992 AT 10.00 AM

I am pleased to be with you today on World Maritime Day. It is an auspicious occasion to celebrate the passing of the 10 million Gross Tonnage (GRT) mark by the Singapore Ship Registry. This is an important milestone in our maritime history. I would like to thank all of you who have contributed to this achievement. It also gives me great pleasure to congratulate all the 15 recipients of special awards. In l particular, I would like to mention HSH Tanker Pte Ltd whose ship, the Sentosa Pride, brought the Singapore merchant fleet past 10 million GRTs. We have just heard how our Registry grew from humble beginnings, spurred on by a bid to create jobs in the late sixties. It was then a question of survival. Today, times are better but there is still a strong economic rationale for wanting a large merchant fleet. A sizeable fleet brings with it many economic benefits in terms of employment and business opportunities for lawyers, banks, insurance companies, ship- repairers and other businesses. Without a large fleet, it will be difficult to achieve our goal of becoming a premier maritime centre which will provide a comprehensive range of services to the maritime industry. We now have a fleet of respectable size which ranks 12th in the world. But this is not enough to ensure our success as a maritime centre. We also need skilled professionals in the maritime area. In this respect, we already have a sizeable pool of people. However, if we are to maintain our competitive edge, improvements must continually be made in terms of numbers and range of expertise. I am glad to note that the Singapore National Shipping Association (SNSA)'s Training Institute and the Singapore Port Institute are providing more courses to those ashore. The Singapore Polytechnic has also contributed by revising its training schemes to facilitate mobility between the engineering and nautical disciplines. To achieve the critical mass needed for us to achieve our aim of being a total maritime centre, we should aim to at least double the size of our fleet. To depend on local growth will take at least 15 years. We would like to shorten this period by attracting foreign tonnage. To do this, we must work quickly because there is increasing competition world-wide for shipping tonnage from the traditional maritime nations and aspiring maritime centres. The traditional maritime countries such as Denmark, Germany, 2 Norway and the United Kingdom have set up so-called international registers. The Norwegians have been particularly successful in increasing their tonnage from nine to 24 million GRT in just five years between 1986 and 1991. In the face of such competition, it is especially important that unions, shipowners and Government should continue to work closely together. We should consider how our various strengths can be combined to make it even more attractive for foreign shipowners and managers to operate from here. In this way, we can in the not too distant future come together once again to celebrate yet another milestone.

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MinCom/Msepl6.'92/Pgs.l-2 From: INFORMATIONS (8812:GVT224) Subject: [Passing of the 10 Million GRT Mark] Posted: Thu 17-September-92 18:38 SING Delivered: Thu 17-September-92 18:38 SING (51 lines) Msg ID: IPM-8812-920917-167721860

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