Distinguished guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning.

2 It is my pleasure to extend a very warm welcome to all of you to the CoreNet Global’s 2007 Asia Summit in Singapore. For the delegates from overseas, I hope that you will have an enjoyable and productive stay with us.

3 As corporate citizens in today’s global economy, it is no longer enough for us to just take care of our bottom lines; we have a role and the responsibility to protect the environment and sustain our society. Only by adopting the right strategies to ensure sustainable development, can we minimize the impact of urbanization and enhance our environment, reduce the damages to our surroundings and the corresponding costs in natural resources and other materials, and attract and retain talents to create sustainable business. In this regard, I would like to commend CoreNet Global for adopting the theme - “People, Planet, Profit: Corporate Real Estate for the 21st Century” - for this Summit.

4 It is befitting that Singapore is hosting this Summit. Allow me to elaborate.

5 Highly mobile international and local talents and their families are drawn to places that offer them a high quality of life, including a healthy, comfortable and attractive living environment. Furthermore, it has been shown that companies decide where to set up office not just based on economic and fiscal considerations, but also on which city offers the best lifestyle for their management and staff.

6 For example, Singapore was chosen to host Lucasfilm Animation’s first foreign studio largely due to the quality of life that it offered. A recent survey by Hong Kong-based human resources consultancy firm, ECA International, also placed Singapore at the top of a 254-city list as the world’s most desirable city for Asian expatriates for the fifth consecutive year. Reason given was again the quality of life offered here. In this context, offering quality of life has become an important strategy to root and retain talents essential for economic survival in the long run.

7 Singapore is a good place for people to live in and to bring up their families. Our good quality environment has not only been important in rooting our people here, but is also key in attracting highly mobile international talents and businesses.

8 Despite being a small city-state with a high level of urbanization, Singapore is known and loved for its lush greenery, parks and nature areas. To build on this, we will enhance our existing parks and the connectivity between the parks, build up the streetscape greenery and push for rooftop and vertical greening. Our aim is to transform Singapore from a Garden City to a ‘City-in-a-Garden’.

9 However, we recognize that we will need to move beyond environmental performance to long-term environmental sustainability. Sustainable development is not just about ecological preservation. It is about an enlightened and balanced approach to growth that minimizes environmental problems, which can undermine economic gains in the longer run.

10 For example, we are looking not just at water quality but the sustainability of our water supply; not just air pollution but sustainable energy use; not just litter but sustainable waste management; not just building safety but building efficiency – in short, not just development, but sustainable development.

11 Other than pursuing a natural green environment, Singapore is also going green in its physical infrastructure. We are turning to green building technologies as a way to sustainability.

12 In 2005, we introduced a Green Mark Scheme for Buildings to promote green building technologies and designs. A number of buildings have been Green Mark certified since then under this initiative.

13 To achieve wider adoption of this scheme, Singapore’s public sector is taking the lead in its pursuit of sustainability by requiring all new public sector buildings and those undergoing major retrofitting to be green-mark certified. The Housing and Development Board (HDB), Singapore’s public housing authority, has also adopted the Green Mark scheme for all new public housing projects from January 2007. Just this morning, HDB has also launched a new public housing project called Treetops @ Punggol that is a showcase of our years of work in environment sustainability. The project, with several eco-friendly features, is a strong testimony to the Government’s commitment to weave environmental sustainability into our everyday life.

14 To encourage private sector developers to jump on the Green Mark bandwagon, a $20 million Green Mark Incentive Scheme was launched. We have also launched a $50 million fund to support research and development in areas which could enhance the quality of our built environment, and green building technology would certainly fit in as a key research area.

15 We have not stopped here. We are encouraging developers to switch to sustainable construction methods and materials.

16 Sustainability makes good business sense. The savings from operating energy-efficient buildings that also conserve water can be substantial over the lifespan of the building, as our far-sighted business owners and landlords are learning.

17 I understand that site visits have been planned for you to tour the Marina Bay. The Marina Bay is a centerpiece of the new Singapore not only because of our unparalleled waterfront real estate but because we are combining redevelopment, preservation, reuse of historic buildings, and the vision of a new downtown community. To top it all, all the developments at the Marina Bay will be Green Buildings certified under our Green Mark scheme.

18 The green initiatives that Singapore is implementing will ultimately benefit building owners, tenants, residents employees and the community surrounding Singapore, or what you (the audience) would consider the theme of this conference: the triple bottom line of People, Planet and Profits.

19 Indeed, it is our responsibility to provide a sustainable living environment not just for this generation, but for future generations as well. I have no doubt that over the course of the next few days, you will take away more ideas and experiences from the speakers and the other participants. I wish you a fruitful conference and a wonderful stay in Singapore.

Thank you.

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