Subtitles (40)
0:002025 was a pretty good year for the so-called
'Little Red Dot' as Singapore is known.
0:06Despite trade uncertainties, the island's economy
0:08blew past expectations — one of
the key drivers? Manufacturing.
0:14It's something not often associated with
the city-state — but represents about 20%
0:19of GDP — and proved resilient to the
shock of U.S. tariffs. And we’re not
0:23talking about spokes and widgets. We're
talking about sectors like biomedicals.
0:29And advanced products from electronics clusters,
0:31which are riding the wave of blistering
demand for AI-related semiconductors
0:35and servers. The government plays an
active role in laying the groundwork
0:39for an advanced manufacturing ecosystem, that
seeks to attrack top talent and investment.
0:44First of all, we have been present
in Singapore for more than 50 years.
0:48So we all we, as I said, we feel at
home here in Singapore. Number one,
0:53number two, tell us, has always been highly
supported by the Singaporean authorities.
1:00Why so? Because they do have a lot of appetite
for technologies, including, I would say,
1:05new technologies in the manufacturing field.
Hence the fact that we are supported in this
1:10domain by Singapore to grow our footprint
here, in particular, producing more banking
1:16cards or SIM cards, with more automated
industry, with robots, cohorts and allies.
1:23Manufacturing was one of the key drivers that
helped Singapore become one of the so-called
1:27"Asian Tigers" in the early 1980s. But with a
small domestic market and limited labor pool,
1:33the country had to pivot aggressively to find
new sources of growth. Its Manufacturing 2030
1:39initiative — launched in 2021 — aims to expand
the sector's value-added output by 50% by 2030.
1:46Today, advanced-manufacturing investments
have poured in from major players across a
1:50wide range of sectors, including global
pharmaceutical giants AstraZeneca,
1:55Sanofi, and Novartis… As well as leading
technology firms like Micron, GE Aerospace,
2:01and GlobalFoundries. Now, the challenge is
for Singapore to keep its competitive edge.
2:07Because even with its supercharged
manufacturing sector — the government
2:10has warned that sustaining the economic
momentum from 2025 is going to be challenging.
2:16Well, there's a couple of factors. One. One is,
if Singapore doesn't have a fresh talent pipeline
2:23that they're either developing or bringing in from
the outside, it's going to be difficult to keep up
2:28with a lot of these, these new kind of angles,
right, that that are that are linked directly
2:33to technology. That's number one. Number two,
from a geopolitical perspective, Singapore is
2:40vulnerable when it comes to, for example, the
critical technology stacks that drive all of
2:48these industries, right? So you've, of course,
we start with rare earths and critical minerals.
2:54Then we go on to chips themselves. Then we're
looking at networks and the internet of things,
2:59right? We're looking at software. We're looking
at, ultimately, AI. So for Singapore, the secret
3:05sauce is always going to be AI, which is at
the end of this very critical, now increasingly
3:11bifurcated technology stack between the United
States and China from a geopolitical standpoint.
3:18Still, the country could expect a global
AI upcycle to be sustained into this year,
3:22which the Monetary Authority of Singapore says,
3:24will likely provide near-term support
for Singapore's trade-related sectors.
