Singapore plans to meet rising demand for petrochemicals by creating competitive feedstock and producing more value-added advanced materials and specialty chemicals, said S. Iswaran, senior minister of state for Trade and Industry and Education, at an industry event Wednesday.

    
"We intend to further improve on our position as one of the world's top 10 petrochemical hubs," he said. "We will do so by enhancing infrastructure development, creating competitive feedstock for petrochemicals, and moving up the value chain with advanced materials as well as specialty chemicals."

    
Asia is expected to account for 50% of global petrochemical demand, he told the National Trades Union Congress' Oil, Petrochemicals and Chemicals cluster in a speech posted on the Singapore government's website.

    
With ExxonMobil Chemical and Shell Chemicals new steam crackers being completed, Singapore's total ethylene output will rise from 2 million mt/year to 4 million mt/year by 2012, he pointed out. Singapore will focus on high-value specialty chemicals to support other high-growth industries such as the clean energy sector, he added.

    
The Singapore government will continue to develop Jurong Island, which houses many petroleum and petrochemical companies, he said.

    
The Jurong Island Version 2.0 initiative was first announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on May 4 during the opening ceremony of the Shell Eastern Petrochemicals Complex.

    
Lee described it as a whole-of-government effort in partnership with the industry focusing on enhancing Singapore's competitiveness and sustainability and developing technology solutions to save resources.

    
The energy and chemicals industry was one of the largest contributors to Singapore's manufacturing output, Iswaran pointed out. In 2009, the petrochemicals and specialty chemicals sectors contributed close to S$58 billion ($42.9 billion) to the manufacturing output, translating to S$1.9
billion in terms of value addition, he added.