Speech by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Minister for Education and Second Minister for Finance, at the Inauguration of the Mercedes Benz Design Workshop 2007 on Thursday, 15 November 2007, at 9.30am, at Galleries 1 & 2, NAFA Campus 1, 80 Bencoolen St

SPEECH BY MR THARMAN SHANMUGARATNAM, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AND SECOND MINISTER FOR FINANCE, AT THE INAUGURATION OF THE MERCEDES BENZ DESIGN WORKSHOP 2007 ON THURSDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 2007, AT 9.30AM, AT GALLERIES 1 & 2, NAFA CAMPUS 1, 80 BENCOOLEN ST

His Excellency Folkmar Stoecker
Ambassador, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany,

1. I’m pleased to join you this morning at the inauguration of the Mercedes Benz Design Workshop 2007, and to witness the start of this collaboration between Daimler Southeast Asia and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

2. We all know how the creative industries are growing in Singapore. It is one of the exciting new developments of the last decade, and has really picked up momentum in the last few years. Singapore is now seen as a point of convergence in Asia, for the arts and design. We are attracting creative talents from around the world, and our own schools and tertiary institutions like NAFA are now recognised as amongst the leaders in arts education in Asia.

3. This also means a new source of growth and value in our economy. Creative ideas and applications are becoming real factors in maintaining our competitiveness in a whole range of industries, both in services and manufacturing.

4. Of course, developing such capabilities is not achieved overnight. Our young people must be given every opportunity to develop their creative talents, and to shape unique perspectives that will resonate with their audience. I am thus very pleased to see that our students will benefit from this collaboration between Daimler and the Academy.

5. I understand that this project will provide students with an opportunity to learn how to couple their learning of the creative disciplines with applied product design, through the workshops and exhibition. Daimler has also organised a design competition especially for students from the Academy. I hope that in all these activities, both faculty and students will be able to learn and interact with expert designers from the Daimler design team, and that the seeds of fruitful partnerships and future collaborations will be sown.

6. I would like to express my appreciation to Daimler Southeast Asia which has made a significant effort to support this project by flying in their top design professionals to conduct workshops and share their knowledge as well as practical experience in the field of premium automobile design and development.

7. Congratulations to Daimler Southeast Asia and to the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts for getting this very special project off the ground. I wish you every success for this event, and hope that this will be the beginning of a sustained and fruitful partnership.