INVESTMENT COMMITMENTS (Drop in value-added per worker)

Dr Augustine H.H. Tan asked the Minister for Trade and Industry if he will explain why the expected value-added per worker of new manufacturing investment commitments fell from $112,907 in 1984 to $77,854 in 1987, as reported in the 1987 Economic Survey of Singapore, and how this can be reconciled with the claim that new investment projects committed continued to be of good quality.

The Minister for Trade and Industry (BG Lee Hsien Loong): Mr Speaker, Sir, the value-added per worker of new manufacturing investment commitments since 1981 is as shown in Table 1 (Cols. 61 - 62), which I have distributed and should be with Members. Table 1 - Value-Added (VA) Per Worker of New Manufacturing Investment Commitments (Cols. 61 - 62)

You can see from the Table that apart from 1984, the figures have remained at about the same level since 1981. The 1984 figure was unusually high, because of two large projects with exceptionally good value-added per worker. One had $800,000 value-added per worker, the other had $284,000, as opposed to $113,000 for all industries.

The value-added per worker measures the projected productivity of new investment projects. It is only one indicator of the quality of new investment projects. Another is the skill profile of the workers employed in these projects, which reflects the skill content and the technology level of these projects. And as you can see from Table 2 (Cols. 61 - 62) on the same sheet of paper, this has improved over the years. The proportion of technical and skilled workers has increased while the proportion of unskilled workers has shrunk. In 1985, only 9% of the people employed were technical workers. By 1987, it had increased to 13%; in 1985, only 25% of the workers was skilled and by 1987 had increased to 39%. This reflects the success of our policy of promoting projects with higher technical and R&D content. Table 2 - Skill Profile of Workers of New Investment Projects (Cols. 61 - 62)

The statement in the Annual Economic Survey (AES) that new investment projects committed continued to be of good quality is therefore a reasonable one.

Dr Augustine H.H. Tan (Whampoa): Mr Speaker, Sir, will the Minister agree to include useful data such as those presented in Table 2 in future Economic Surveys?

BG Lee Hsien Loong: Mr Speaker, Sir, we have always tried to do that, but we will try harder in future.