Speech by Minister Chee Hong Tat at The Association of Consulting Engineers (ACES) 55th Anniversary Gala Dinner 2026

A very good evening. Let me start by congratulating ACES on your 55th anniversary.

This is a significant milestone. If you look back to 1971 when ACES was founded, Singapore was a very different place. We were a young nation with limited resources and many pressing priorities. Over the past decades, generations of consulting engineers have helped to transform our island into a vibrant, liveable and globally connected city.

From Changi Airport and our MRT network, to the deep tunnel sewerage systems, your expertise has built the world-class infrastructure that keeps our city and our economy running smoothly.

But we are not done building Singapore. With major infrastructure developments such as the Long Island project and Changi Airport's Terminal 5, the Built Environment sector, or the BE sector, will continue to be at the forefront of shaping our nation's future.

These ambitious projects require us to push boundaries and to overcome complex challenges. To help the industry succeed, the Government will continue to support the sector. Let me speak about three areas in my speech this evening.

• First, driving industry transformation and productivity through technology adoption and innovation;

• Second, building and strengthening capabilities across the sector; and

• Third, attracting and retaining talent.

Driving Industry Transformation and Productivity

Let me start with the first area - driving industry transformation and improving productivity. We have made it a priority in MND and BCA to transform the BE sector, to improve productivity as well as help companies to reduce costs, reduce time and reduce manpower.

This is not a new or one-off priority, but we want to give it a stronger push and we are also constantly on the lookout for new ideas and what are better ways of doing things.

This transformation requires partnership between the Government and the industry. We will work together, we will take calculated risks together, we will test out new ideas and we will scale up feasible innovations, so that we can deliver actionable measures and achieve concrete outcomes on the ground.

This is why we set up the Action Team to Improve Built Environment Productivity earlier this year, which brings together Government and industry representatives to review industry practices, to reduce regulatory burden and to streamline processes.

Since its formation, the Action Team has been discussing possible policy and process improvements that can help our companies to achieve the three savings: cost savings, time savings, manpower savings, and we want to try and do this across the entire building lifecycle.

We have identified design standardisation as one of the ways to boost productivity. Building on the industry's progress in adopting Design for Manufacturing and Assembly, or DfMA, we are exploring how greater standardisation of components across projects of similar typologies can improve manufacturing efficiency, reduce duplication of effort and deliver projects more productively.

The Action Team will continue to consult widely with our stakeholders across the BE value chain. We welcome your ideas and we hope to work together with you and your colleagues to shape a more pro-business environment and to help unlock new possibilities for our sector.

Remote Site Supervision

Another area where we are already seeing encouraging progress in transforming the BE sector is in the adoption of technologies and progressive practices. A good example is remote site supervision, or RSS.

Traditionally, our professional engineers or Qualified Persons (QPs) spend many hours travelling between project sites to conduct routine inspections. Now we know this is not the best use of their time or their expertise.

By leveraging digital tools and technologies such as the 360-degree cameras, smart drones, and AI-powered data tracking, RSS allows our engineers to supervise multiple project sites virtually, including from their offices.

So it will reduce the time that they spend travelling, it will enhance workplace safety, and it will allow companies to improve their productivity and optimise manpower deployment.

I believe this can be a game changer for improving industry productivity. By adopting RSS, CapitaLand Development has cut its supervision manhours for structural works on its project site for J'den, an upcoming mixed development at Jurong East, by 40%.

Embracing RSS is not just about using new gadgets, it is about maximising the contributions from our precious human capital, our engineers, our experts, so that you are able to spend your time and your energy on what matters most. It will also help to speed up decision making, and build a more agile, safer and more resilient BE sector.

Remote Site Supervision Guidebook

To accelerate the momentum of RSS adoption, BCA has partnered ACES, the Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES) and the Singapore Contractors Association Limited (SCAL), to publish a second version of the RSS guidebook for supervision of structural works.

This guidebook provides clearer guidance to developers and engineers on how RSS provisions can be incorporated into contracts and supervision processes, by consolidating best practices and technology guidance from over 30 trials conducted with consultants, contractors, Government Procurement Entities and developers.

I would like to encourage more companies to come on board and embrace RSS so that we are able to work smarter and build a more productive and resilient Built Environment sector. Let's scale up the adoption of RSS across the industry and help our companies and workers to save time and save money.

I want to add that we recognise that publishing the supervision guidebook is a good first step, but we shouldn't stop there. When I discussed with my colleagues recently, my guidance to them is, we need to take a look at what are the other bottlenecks and obstacles that are preventing us from having a more industry-wide adoption of this good practice. This is something that I hope to take on, together with my colleagues and the industry partners, as part of the Action Team's work. To go further and see how we can build on this initial first step of publishing the guidebook. To go further and see what other changes do we need, to address the concerns of the different stakeholders, including our QPs.

When you use RSS, you may be worried about whether this will fulfil the safety and the regulatory requirements. So, we will want to take a look at that as well, so as to give greater assurance to our QPs, that when you use RSS, you don't have to worry. If you follow the proper process, you don't have to worry. I think this is something that I hope to build on and to continue to work with all of you, so that we are able to encourage wider adoption of RSS to help our companies further.

Streamlining sampling rates for the compressive tests for concrete

Another example of the partnership between Government and industry in transforming the BE sector is to streamline the sampling rates for concrete compressive tests by BCA, which are conducted for quality assurance.

Today, there is a variation across the industry in the sampling rates for such tests. This can result in over-testing, which incurs unnecessary time and cost.

Moving forward, BCA will provide clear indication on what is the acceptable sampling rate for all concrete compressive tests. This may sound like a simple technical adjustment, but it can bring about significant benefits in practice for the companies involved. It can result in tangible savings in time, material costs, and manpower. We estimate that the number of concrete cube tests can be reduced by up to 50%, saving approximately $3 million annually.

Capability Development for the BE Sector

Streamlining regulations and adopting productive technologies and progressive practices like RSS are useful steps. We must also focus on building longer-term capacity for the BE sector. This brings me to the next key area - equipping our companies and our professionals with the capabilities to tackle future challenges.

Looking ahead, our engineers will have to navigate new and sophisticated technologies, adapt to shifting global trends, and seize new growth opportunities, especially in emerging areas like sustainability, digitalisation, and artificial intelligence.

As Singapore pushes ahead to meet our net-zero targets and adapt to a changing climate, our engineers will play a pivotal role in driving this green transition. Achieving our sustainability objectives requires us to raise our capabilities across the entire building life cycle, from planning and design to operations and facilities management.

Our engineers must be at the forefront of this movement, leading the adoption of sustainable solutions. From designing for circularity and reducing embodied carbon, to deploying alternative cooling technologies and AI-enabled energy optimisation systems, you will be at the heart of building a more sustainable future for Singapore.

We must also capture the immense potential of digitalisation and AI. These are tools to help us, and these tools are redefining what is possible in the BE sector - driving productivity, strengthening collaboration, and unlocking frontiers for Singapore's next phase of development.

We have to move quickly to commercialise these innovations. As Er. Choong Choon Guan shared earlier, the M&E Digital Design Automation Platform that will be launched commercially this month shows how automation can streamline M&E engineering workflows and maximise savings.

It is encouraging to see ACES and its industry partners taking bold steps to transform the way we work - transformation is most powerful when it is driven by industry, for industry. And the Government will come in to lend our support. If in the process of reviewing your practices and rules, you need us to review our policies and our regulations, we are prepared to do it. Let us know. I have told my colleagues when we talk about transformation, it is not just asking the industry to transform, the Government must also transform. It is not just asking the industry to adopt AI, the Government must also adopt AI. It is not just asking the industry to innovate, the Government must also innovate.

This is something that we hope to continue to work in close partnership with ACES. And my request to everyone is this. Tell us - if there are pain points, if there are areas that you think we can do better, don't hold back. I assure you, we will take your feedback seriously. If it is something that we can change and make things better, we will do it.

Growing the Talent Pool for Engineering

The success of these shifts ultimately depends on one critical enabler. Er Choong mentioned this earlier in his speech too - our people. Building advanced capabilities and adopting technology will give our companies an advantage, but these innovations cannot succeed in a vacuum. To sustain the momentum, we must ensure that the BE sector remains an exciting, rewarding and progressive career of choice for our younger generation. But if I may be honest, I don't think we are doing so well. I think we face an uphill battle on this front. Our young people have a lot of choices; they have a lot of options. And to be very frank, today many of them don't see our sector as a top choice. We have to work together to change this. Tell them, show them, interest them. What are some of the exciting new developments in our sector? What is the purpose and the very meaningful work that they can contribute to if they join us? How can they make a difference in shaping the future of Singapore and to build a better world if they join us? I think we need to do a better job in selling our narrative, our plus points, our purpose, our mission, to our young people. But this cannot be done by the industry alone or by the Government alone. We need to work together to do this well.

Last year, the Taskforce for Architectural and Engineering Consultants, which my colleague, Minister Indranee Rajah co-chaired with Mr Chaly Mah, Chairman of Surbana Jurong Group, they put forward 11 recommendations to strengthen the BE talent pipeline and to support the transformation of the sector. ACES played a very important role in helping to shape these recommendations - thank you for that.

Since then, we have worked closely with many of you to turn these recommendations into action. The results are beginning to take shape but we are not there yet. Nonetheless, let me share two examples.

First, to attract bright young minds to our sector, we launched the INSPIRE internship programme in September last year. INSPIRE provides students with deeper on-the-job learning, stronger mentorship, and clearer pathways towards more competitive starting salaries when they graduate.

Thanks to the partnership and commitment of firms and also our business leaders across the sector, including many of you who are here tonight, the first batch of 11 interns have started their internships in the BE sector. It is a small first step, but is a good first step. I hope we can continue to attract more, so that we grow this pipeline in future.

And this includes five students placed at Surbana Jurong Group, four at CPG Consultants, and one each at PH Consulting and P&T Consultants.

We have many more companies that what I have just highlighted. So for those of you who have not yet come on board, I like to encourage you and to request for your help - please come on board and support this. Join the INSPIRE internship programme, to help shape the future leaders of our sector.

The second initiative I will share with you, is the Government is taking the lead to adopt progressive procurement practices, as part of our broader efforts to strengthen the BE profession.

We expanded the 'Reduced Fee Score' pilot from December last year to cover all public sector Quality-Fee Method tenders up to $100 million, which was an increase from the previous $50 million.

This discourages unsustainably low bids for Government tenders, ensuring that companies are able to compete on sustainable fees, rather than to keep going for lower and lower fees, which then makes it unsustainable. And we hope that by doing so, the companies will then invest more in their people. So rather than go for low fees, make it sustainable and invest more in your people, invest more in innovation, invest more in building long-term capabilities. I think this is, over the medium and long term, better off for everybody in our entire ecosystem.

We have also made the Limitation of Liability clause a default provision in the Standard Consultancy Agreement between Government agencies and consultants. I believe this enables fairer risk allocations and also allows consultants to be better insured against professional liabilities.

Conclusion: Transforming Together

Let me conclude by thanking ACES for your steadfast partnership over the past 55 years. The theme of this year's anniversary, "Shaping Tomorrow, Celebrating 55 Years", reminds us that as we celebrate a proud legacy, more challenges and more hard work remain ahead of us.

The next chapter of Singapore's story will be shaped by how boldly we innovate, how effectively we work together, and how well we prepare our next generation of engineering professionals.

My best wishes once again to ACES on your 55th anniversary, and congratulations to all the award recipients on your achievements.

I wish everyone a wonderful evening ahead. Thank you.