Singapore 'the right place to be in'

Business Times - 23 Aug 2008

Singapore 'the right place to be in'

SINGAPORE'S development to-date, and its strategy for the future 'are outstanding', Dr Jurgen Hambrecht says when we meet, just minutes after he has had a bird's eye view of the Republic from the Singapore Flyer.

'It's opening up more and more, and attracting more people and cleverly so to,' he adds, alluding to Singapore's foreign talent-draw.

On its part, BASF also believes very much in foreign talent, he says. 'It is also one reason why we are investing in R&D in Singapore, and recruiting staff and top people in the technical areas and also from the universities.'

'When it comes to diversity, we are not the best yet, but we are working on this ... this is something from BASF's point of view where Singapore will play a part,' he said.

Dr Hambrecht was referring to BASF's establishment last year of its second research and development laboratory here - for organic electronics - following its first R&D facility for nanotechnology, under a S$30 million, three-year R&D budget for Singapore.

This is on top of its earlier US$500 million Ellba Eastern joint venture with Shell Chemicals on Jurong Island producing styrene monomer/propylene oxide (SMPO), which are intermediates used for end products like polystyrene containers and rubber soles.

Dr Hambrecht said that its two leading-edge R&D labs here will play a big role in BASF's long-term strategy to stay competitive through innovation.

'Singapore is a good place, because of intellectual property protection, to look at the entire Asian region. Certainly this is why future-oriented technology, where you need patent protection, is being done in Singapore. This is the right place to be in.

'Here, we started with nanotechnology for all kinds of areas, and now we've brought in photovoltaic research. This means that of our five growth clusters, we do basic spearhead research on two of them here in Singapore. Besides Germany, no other country has two of our growth clusters,' Dr Hambrecht said, emphasising the Republic's importance to BASF.

Furthermore, any innovation originating from the laboratories has also to be followed through on the ground, that is, in manufacturing, he added.

Following its SMPO plant investment on Jurong Island, Dr Hambrecht said that 'there is a new technology which we are at this very moment looking at in Europe, which is called propylene direct oxidation. I believe this is a much better technology compared with SMPO. So as we go on, we have to evaluate any kind of project vis-a-vis their future feasibility'.

'When we come to basic building blocks in chemistry, the way to differentiate yourself is to have a new, more competitive product,' he stressed.

Asked if BASF was now focusing more on R&D in Singapore, rather than manufacturing investments, Dr Hambrecht said: 'No, everything starts with R&D. But if you don't have manufacturing close to this, at the end of the day R&D will not stay,' he said.

Dr Hambrecht said that the Economic Development Board has been doing an excellent job in strategically positioning Singapore in this regard, by not just drawing in the big petrochemical investors but also the R&D labs like BASF's and Mitsui Chemicals' which will help generate the next-generation products.

Does BASF have an in-house think-tank just like Singapore's EDB has informal 'amoeba' teams of officers to 'dream up' new innovation or growth areas?

Dr Hambrecht said: 'We have a similar approach and we talk intensively every year with EDB about the future, and we openly exchange our ideas ... by the way, EDB got some ideas about integrated manufacturing from BASF. I think EDB's basic approach to this may have emerged out of this.'

He was referring to the economies and efficiencies gained from having fully-integrated petrochemicals manufacturing at a single site - or the 'Verbund' concept - like what BASF has in Ludwigshafen in Germany and in Nanjing, China.

Singapore's Jurong Island has prospered in much the same way, attracting multi-billion dollar petrochemical complexes like Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore's and more recently ExxonMobil's second complex and Shell's latest project, thanks to such integration.

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