MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND THE ARTS

BG (Res) GEORGE YEO Minister for Information and the Arts

The Arts

The National Arts Council will establish an Arts Endowment Fund to help promote the arts in Singapore.

2. The Singapore Arts Centre will be built at Marina Bay by 1999. Comprising five auditoriums and a commercial component, it will be a cultural village which will be lively throughout the day and week. Heritage

3. The National Museum will be converted from a Government Department to a Statutory Board. This will give the Museum more flexibility to set up an Endowment Fund and to build up its collection from donations and loans.

4. In the long term, the museum precinct will be comprehensively developed into five separate museums. In place of a museum of Southeast Asia Ethnology, we will work towards a Museum of Asian Civilizations, with separate sections on Southeast Asia, East Asia and South & West Asia.

5. The Fine Arts Museum at the former Saint Joseph's Institution will be ready by 1994.

6. The former Tao Nan School in Armenian Street will be renovated to provide more space for museum and cultural use.

Information

7. The Government will consider the recommendations of the Censorship Review Committee, which will be ready by April this year. Broadcasting

8. SBC will be privatised to give it more operational flexibility to carry out its mission to inform, educate and entertain in the four official languages.

National Library

9. A new National Library building at Victoria Street will replace the present building at Stamford Road by 1996. It will be equipped with up to date information technology, and linked to national and international library databases.

10. We will review the number, size and location of new branch libraries that will be needed for the next 10 years.