2.9 Not only is the world coming to Singapore, Singaporeans are seizing opportunities abroad. Globalisation is working to the advantage of Singapore companies.
2.10 Food Empire, based in Geylang, owns MacCoffee, which has become immensely popular in Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Bahrain, Iran and Turkey. Its advertising slogan in Ukraine reads: “Every other Ukrainian drinks MacCoffee.” In fact, even the advertisement won the most prestigious award in the Ukrainian advertising industry, which I presume means it’s true!
2.11 Rotary Engineering is another example. It was founded by Chia Kim Piow with a few friends in the 1970s. He was like many others at the time, not much education, nothing beyond secondary four — no diploma or degree. Everything was learnt on the job. Rotary began by handling electrical installations and sub-contracting for the big oil refineries. It now builds big oil refineries. Today, Rotary is one of Asia’s leading engineering companies in oil and gas infrastructure. Very active in China and India, and now moving into the Middle Eastern market with Saudi Arabian partners.
2.12 It is not just the larger Singapore players that are going abroad. We have many individual Singaporeans taking their chances and making their presence felt in their own way in global markets. They are in demand all over Asia, as trusted managers and engineers, and increasingly too as creative professionals. Like our Singapore chefs. Justin Quek is amongst our best known, having won several awards while he was in Singapore, at Les Amis, is now based in Taipei running his own restaurant – I think it is called Le Petite Cuisine. It’s already regarded as the best French restaurant in Taipei. Singaporean, in Taipei, running a French restaurant.
2.13 Jek Tan, another example, trained at SHATEC, progressed in his career – last year became Executive Chef at the Shangri-la in Dalian in Northeast China. I met him there. We have been in contact and he mailed me last week to say that he had invited over to Dalian three other Singaporean chefs. He had known them because he had worked with them in another hotel in Singapore. He invited them over for two months to run a Singapore Food Festival. The Chinese were wowed by the menu – bak ku teh, satay, beef rendang. Unfortunately, the “rendang” when translated into Chinese sounded a bit like “people’s egg”. So, one of the compliments he received was that it tasted much better than it sounded.
2.14 This is what globalisation is about, and why it is working for Singapore. Companies and individuals coming from all around the world to Singapore, and using Singapore to reach out to the rest of Asia; and Singaporeans reaching out to global markets, taking their chances, competing, seizing opportunities. And this is why the outlook for Singapore is bright.
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