I just met up with one of the Senior Executives of a Petrochemical company on Jurong Island. It is exciting to know that they have plans to set up yet another manufacturing facility here in Singapore, and will be employing an additional 150 chemical engineers!

I will share this information with the rest of the team, and also with the other Ministries at the inter-agency meeting next week. This is definitely timely as we are finalising our plans for the manpower initiative to develop talent for the Chemicals industry.

Oh, remember the Jurong Island Open Day, ChemEx which I spoke about? It turned out to be a huge success! We managed to convince 11 companies on the Island to participate in this Open Day that hosted more than 500 tertiary students, where they got to better understand the prospects of the chemical and energy industries in Singapore.

I interacted with some of the students there and it was great when they told me that the Open House dispelled their original perceptions of the chemicals industry. Well, for one, they used to think of work in this industry as being "dirty and dangerous", but when they saw the companies’ facilities and their safety measures, they changed their minds. They discovered that the work is really dynamic as the staff are closely involved in cutting-edge technologies and high value R&D work!

Changing mindsets and building manpower capabilities certainly can't be achieved overnight. But that is precisely the challenge and fun of the job, isn't it? And being aware of the big picture keeps me motivated. :)