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Construction sector gets S$55 million boost

SINGAPORE — To boost productivity in the construction industry through the use of technology, the Government will inject an additional S$55 million to the Construction Productivity and Capability Fund (CPCF), bringing the total funding to S$335 million.

Construction workers working at a construction site. TODAY file photo

Construction workers working at a construction site. TODAY file photo

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SINGAPORE — To boost productivity in the construction industry through the use of technology, the Government will inject an additional S$55 million to the Construction Productivity and Capability Fund (CPCF), bringing the total funding to S$335 million.

Announcing this today (Oct 14), Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Grace Fu said the worksite productivity has improved 1.2 per cent per year from 2010 to 2013 which fell short of the Government’s target of 2 to 3 per cent.

Although growth in the construction workforce has slowed, it made up a significant proportion of the foreign workforce growth last year, said Ms Fu at the opening of the Singapore Construction Productivity Week.

There is a need to focus on making prefabrication more prevalent, raise the skills level in the industry, and have further integration along the construction value chain, she said.

The Government hopes to have 40 to 50 projects adopt technologies such as prefabricated pre-finished volumetric construction, where rooms are produced off site and installed on site, “much like Legos”, she said.

The industry can no longer rely on outdated methods of construction and cheap foreign labour when many advanced countries have already progressed way ahead of Singapore in productivity, said Building and Construction Authority chief executive officer John Keung.

Acknowledging that businesses may feel the pain from restructuring, Dr Keung said: “It is better now than later especially given the strong pipeline of construction projects in the next few years from the public sector.”

 

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