Opening of Jurong Island Road Link

The following is an article on the vast improvement made by the chemical industry in Singapore over the years, especially in the oil business industry. DP Lee Hsien Loong also commented on the symbolism of Jurong Island to Singapore.

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DP Lee Hsien Loong 10 February 2000
Opening of Jurong Island Road Link

Singapore is a hub to many world-class chemical companies serving as a strategic base for their Asia-Pacific operations.

The chemical industry has been growing rapidly over the last few tears, performance in 2004 was encouraging with a 29% year-on-year increase in output at 8652.6 billion and a 46% increase in value-added, up to S$7.5 billion. With robust performance, the chemical industry’s share of manufacturing output rose from 26% in 2003 to over 28%, strengthening its position as the 2nd largest industry after electronics.

The cluster development strategy involves leveraging on Singapore’s largest petroleum refining base to produce key feedstocks for building downstream petrochemicals, speciality chemicals and fine chemicals in an integrated manner.

As manufacturing and services become more closely integrated, chemical companies are repositioning for growth, increasingly leveraging Singapore’s total business capabilities while stepping up market driven R & D and testing new technology.

Strategically located at the heart of Asia-Pacific, Singapore is one the largest refining centres in the world, with the presence of oil majors such as Exxonmobil, Shell and Caltex.

Singapore is well established as a total oil business centre, with activities encompassing petroleum refining, marketing and trading. Oil majors are also using Singapore as a base for their regional headquarters and research and development activities. More importantly, the petroleum industry, with a total of refining capacity of 1.33 million barrels per day, is the world’s third largest centre after Houston and Amsterdam.

“Today, Jurong Island has also become a symbol of national enterprise. Here, we conceived and built an integrated petrolchemical industry complex out of coral reefs and a scattering of small islands.”