Pharmaceutical Industry
Specialty Chemical Industry
Petroleum and Petrochemical Industry

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Pharmaceutical Industry

1. The production of pharmaceutical and healthcare products, particularly in regard to manufacture, analysis, product innovation and quality assurance. Diploma holders would be eligible for employment in a technical capacity in similar areas of the pharmaceutical/health care industry.
2. Although many of the rewards of being part of this industry come from improving other people's health and quality of life, they certainly don't stop there. All the other challenges, opportunities and incentives that you'd expect from one of the Singapore’s biggest industries mean you can get as much satisfaction from working on a cost saving device, or marketing tool, as you can from discovering a new chemical compound that has the potential to save someone's life.
3. There are also the financial rewards. These will vary from company to company but, as a rule, all areas of the industry pay well. And with so many successful, well-established companies and so much competition, many companies offer extremely competitive benefits packages too.
4. The Biomedical Sciences industry is fast becoming a key pillar of Singapore's economy. In 2003, the manufacturing output of our Biomedical Sciences industry grew to S$11.3 billion, representing a 15.9% increase over the year before.
5. Pharmaceuticals contributed $9.5 billion or 84% of this output. Six of the top fifteen pharmaceutical companies have major manufacturing operations in Singapore with total fixed asset investments of more than S$5 billion.
6. Singapore hosts the ISPE Singapore Conference 2004 which was a 3-day pharmaceutical manufacturing conference.
   • This annual event aims to advance the knowledge and competency of the pharmaceutical industry in technology, manufacturing efficiency and regulatory compliance.
   • The conference featured separate industry tracks on key manufacturing issues, including API, regulatory requirements, secondary pharma and R&D.
   • The annual organization of the ISPE Conference and INTERPHEX Asia Trade Exhibitions serve to underline Singapore's fast growing importance as a biomedical sciences hub in the region.

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Specialty Chemical Industry

1. Specialty chemicals are chemical products that are sold on the basis of their performance, rather than for their composition.
2. They can be
   • single-chemical entities or
   • combinations of several chemicals whose composition sharply influences the performance of the product.
3. Complex and interlinked and require intensive knowledge and powerful innovation.
4. The products are widely sold to industries and consumers. Specialty chemicals segments fall into three separate categories.
   • Market-oriented products
     • groups of chemicals that are utilized by a specific industry or market, such as electronic chemicals or oil field chemicals.
   • Functional Specialty Chemicals
     • Products that serve the same, defined function, such as adhesives, antioxidants or biocides.
   • Technology-oriented specialty chemicals:
     • Nanochemicals and materials-particles, layers or composites-in the nanometer (nm) range
     • Biotechnology products, which include chemicals that are synthesized and modified.
     • Products include:
       • dyes and pigments for inks and toners of ink jet and laser printers,
       • synthetic dyes,
       • high performance thermoplastics,
       • radiation curable coatings,
       • pesticides lubricating oil additives textile chemicals and
       • rubber-processing chemicals.
5. Singapore houses numerous companies that manufacture specialty chemicals and is still attracting more such companies to its shore.
   • Asahi Chemical Industry of Japan is to build a 50,000 tonnes per annum polyphenylene ether (PPE) resin facility in Singapore.
   • Demand for Xyron modified PPE is expected to increase at 10% per year.
   • Faci SpA, an Italian metal stearates manufacturer, plans to build a 10,000tpa esters plant on Singapore's Jurong Island at a cost of US$5.7m. These products have diverse range of applications in the food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, paints, electronics coatings and leather industries. It was the potential of markets in Asia that prompted the group's decision to locate the plant in Singapore.
   • Megachem, a Singaporean specialty chemicals distributor has come up with a plan to expand into new markets as well as diversify its capabilities.
   • Honeywell International of the US has opened its Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore. It has manufacturing plants in China, Australia, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. It is looking to further expand its presence in China and India. The region contributed more than 7% of Honeywell’s global revenues in 1999.
   • Croda International of the UK has inaugurated a US$50m plant on Jurong Island to produce 15,000tpa of specialty esters, 15,000tpa of specialty alkoxylates and new, higher value specialty chemicals. Croda’s investment in the plant represents its largest single investment worldwide. Croda expects to increase investment in the facility over the next five years.
   • Continental Chemical Corporation (CCC), a regional investment holding company headquartered in Singapore, invested US$34m to build Singapore’s first plasticiser plant on the Jurong Island petrochemical hub which has production capacity of 100,000tpa of plasticizers.
   • Teijin Polycarbonate Singapore (TPS), a JV between Teijin Ltd and Teijin Chemicals of Japan and EDBInvestments of Singapore, is to start production at its new, 60,000tpa polycarbonate plant on Jurong Island. TPS expects to generate US$140m in annual revenues from the Panlite PC resins produced at its US$190m plant

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Petroleum and Petrochemical Industry

1. Shell
2. Exxon Mobil
3. National Starch & Chemical
4. Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore
5. Chevron
6. Dames & Moore

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