SINGAPORE — The manufacturing sector underpins the Singapore economy’s transformation into a knowledge-based and skills-intensive one and the Government is committed to helping it become more competitive internationally, Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang said yesterday.

“The growth of these industries will also generate demand and create growth opportunities for supporting industries and companies along the value chain. This will, in turn, further enhance the competitiveness of the growth industries,” Mr Lim said at the groundbreaking ceremony of JTC’s latest high-rise industrial development. The development, located in Tuas, will integrate firms within the manufacturing value chain when it is completed in the third quarter of 2017.

The growth of manufacturing — which contributed close to 20 per cent, or about S$71.5 billion in value added, to Singapore’s gross domestic product in 2013 — can strengthen the Republic’s position as a global hub and create higher-value jobs, he said.

Sited on a 6.4ha plot of land, the development, called JTC Space@Tuas, will have seven factories with a height clearance of 13.5m on the ground floor for heavy manufacturing activities such as those in the oil and gas sector. There will also be 36 ramp-up and 95 flatted factories on the upper levels catering to lighter industries such as precision engineering and general manufacturing.

It is also the first JTC development to feature supporting infrastructure such as heavy-vehicle parking facilities, a workers’ dormitory and an amenities centre.

Having companies located within a single development allows them to foster more collaboration and enhance productivity across the value chain, Mr Lim said.

“To give an example, oil and gas companies require a complex array of precision engineering products and solutions to run their operations. Co-locating the two industries will not only reduce transportation costs, but also offer the potential for the companies to integrate their business processes and become more productive,” he said.

One of the two companies that have committed to taking up space at the development is Rohag Singapore, which manufactures parts for oil and gas drilling equipment. Its managing director Lee Kong Peng said the firm would occupy one factory on the ground floor to house its large machines and two units on the upper levels for the medium- and small-sized ones.

JTC chairman Loo Choon Yong said JTC Space@Tuas is expected to result in land savings of about 50 per cent. “As land is, and will continue to be, a constraint in a small country like Singapore, we have explored ways to create new industrial land and space to meet the demand of industrialists,” he said.

Since 2013, JTC has stepped up development of facilities with shared infrastructure and services to help firms grow, while overcoming land constraints in Singapore, Mr Loo said. The first of such facilities, JTC Surface Engineering Hub at Tanjong Kling, officially opened in October and several others are being constructed.