Grooming Talent for Clean Technology

Mr Saktiandi Supaat asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry) (a) what is being done to groom local talents with the right skills and education for the relevant jobs in our goal to become Asia's clean technology hub; (b) of these jobs, how many are estimated to be applicable to Singaporeans; and (c) how will increased focus on clean technology impact our economy.

Mr S Iswaran: Singapore aims to be Asia's leading clean technology (or cleantech) hub to develop domestic solutions and to access the economic opportunities in the region. Our cleantech companies, mainly in the areas of clean energy and water, undertake a wide range of business activities, creating jobs in research and development (R&D), engineering, project development and financing, and high-value manufacturing. Members would be familiar with our success story of improving self-reliance for water. Clean energy, particularly solar energy, will also have a positive impact to our economy both as an economically viable and sustainable energy source, and as an exportable solution to other cities.

The cleantech industry currently hires more than 20,000 workers. In 2016, we projected that the water sector could add 1,000 new PMET jobs by 2020. This year, we also announced plans for the clean energy sector, which is projected to add 2,000 new PMET jobs by 2025. At least two-thirds of these jobs are projected to be taken up by Singaporeans.

Cleantech is part of the Urban Solutions domain which has been identified as a key growth area by the Committee on the Future Economy (CFE), as well as a focus of our Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2020 (RIE2020) Plan. To deepen our knowledge and capability in this field, the Government is supporting public research centres, such as the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS), the Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N), and the Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute (NEWRI), to undertake industry-aligned R&D which create additional good jobs in themselves, and help train technical talent for the wider industry.

The Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and the Energy Market Authority (EMA) also have various initiatives to groom local talent for companies including in-company training, student scholarships, and talent outreach activities such as learning journeys. Taking clean energy as an example, some of our talent grooming and skills upgrading initiatives include the Energy-Industry and Singapore-Industry Scholarships. Since 2014, EMA has supported these scholarships for students in ITEs, polytechnics, and universities, in partnership with sponsoring organisations from the power sector. Since July 2016, early and mid-career Singaporeans in the industry have also been tapping on the SkillsFuture Study Award for the Power Sector, to deepen their engineering skills though supported tertiary education courses.

We will continue to grow the cleantech industry by investing in research and innovation, training skilled manpower, and promoting new financing and business models.