Singapore expects to draw more foreign investments

Singapore expects to draw more foreign investments

SINGAPORE (AFP): Singapore hopes to draw between US$2.5 billion and $3.5 billion a year into manufacturing to sustain its long-term growth projection of four-to-six percent, a local newspaper reported yesterday.

Trade and Industry Minister Yeo Cheow Tong said investment in manufacturing should grow steadily from a base of $4 billion, expected to be reached this year.

"If we can grow at 10-to-15 percent we should be quite happy," he told the Business Times daily.

"We're not just looking for brand new projects but also reinvestments from companies that are growing or upgrading their operations here," Yeo said.

The United States, which committed S$2.1 ($1.4 billion) in the first nine months of the year, is expected to continue as the biggest investor in Singapore.

"The U.S. is the biggest economy and with the tremendous interest in East Asia, we're likely to see more American companies coming this year," Yeo said.

U.S. companies have invested $20 billion in Singapore and provide jobs for some 91,000 Singaporeans, U.S. ambassador Timothy Chorba said recently.

Yeo said that European firms were likely to show more interest in Singapore as they pulled out of recession while Japan was expected to continued investing heavily locally, adding: "We've a fairly strong pipeline from Japan."

He said that despite a tight labor market, some 45,000 skilled Singaporeans joined the job market each year. Singapore also had a large pool of foreign workers.

"So companies that are making high value-added products and which are making use of skilled personnel, I think we would be able to attract enough of them," he said.