If the south-centre represents where the banks are in Singapore, then the west represents where the brawn is. If the south-centre represents Singapore's cultural and administrative history, then the west represents its industrial history.

As we are reminded often enough, Singapore has no natural resources [?] of her own, thus we are dependent on imports from world markets.

Up till the late 1950s, Singapore was mainly an entrepôt [?] linking its resource-rich hinterland [?] (South-East Asia) to the rest of the world. In the 1959 General Election, the Peoples' Action Party came to power, winning forty-three out of fifty-one seats. Almost immediately, there were two types of challenges the new government had to address.

First were external challenges. Our neighbours, caught up by post-war nationalism [?], initiated direct trading instead, thus bypassing Singapore (for example, East Malaysia started trading directly with West Malaysia, and Indonesia gave us the very cold shoulder during Sukarno's Konfrontasi [?], 1963 -1966). These countries set up import tariffs [?] to protect their fledgling domestic industries from external competition.

As if this was not bad enough, there were the internal challenges to tackle. Unemployment was rising as entrepôt [?] was not a labour [?] intensive industry - we were just a transit and bunkering port for raw materials. In 1960, there were an estimated sixty thousand unemployed. The post-Japanese-Occupation [?] baby-boomers were also beginning to enter the job market at around this time.

In the light of all this, the Economic Development Board [!] (EDB) was set up in 1961 to formulate and implement a programme of rapid industrialization in order to diversify the economy [?]; to seek out and evaluate new investment opportunities; and to assist and support industrial programmes through capital [?] assistance and industrial training grants.

One of its first projects was the Jurong Industrial Estate. Jurong was chosen because the sea around Jurong is deep and accessible; land [?] was easy to acquire because it was rural and state-owned [?]; few people lived there, so it was easy to relocate them; and there were low hills of the Jurong Formation which could be used to fill in the swampy lowlands and the shallow coastal waters.

That very year work began at Jurong: basic infrastructure was set up first, including nineteen kilometres of railway track and 110 kilometres of roads. The estate has its own power station and telephone exchanges. Once the infrastructure was in place, sites for factories were established.

Another project which started in 1961 was oil refining. Although Singapore has no oilfields of her own - or practically any other natural resources [?] for that matter - a thriving petrochemical industry has been set up in the Western Islands and Pulau Bukom.

The reasons behind this are manifold. First, Singapore is at the crossroads of South-East Asia. This means that crude oil which is refined in Singapore can be easily transported by tankers to almost any part of the world. The west coast is also well served by a road and rail network to better facilitate the import of raw materials. Transport cost [?] is thus reduced.

Second, land [?] is limited on the mainland and the water is deeper around the Western Islands and Pulau Bukom. This is important because, for example, a tanker of twenty thousand tonnes displacement has a draught of about twenty-one metres when fully laden. Seven offshore islands will be further reclaimed and linked together to form Jurong Island.

Finally, for reasons of safety, it is best to locate Singapore's petrochemical industry away from the densely populated mainland. Add to this Singapore's well-deserved reputation of having a highly-skilled workforce, and it is easy to see why the petrochemical industry is one of the main pillars responsible for our economic growth.

Also found within the estate is Jurong Marine Base, which is a supply terminal for the offshore oil exploration industry in South-East Asia. It provides access to exploration facilities, dockyards, ship- and rig-building facilities, marine repairs and spare parts.

In 1965, Singapore separated from Malaysia and became a democratic, independent nation. Our focus then shifted to Export Oriented Industrialization [?].

As a result, four years later, Jurong Port was declared a Free Trade Zone [?]. It handles three million tonnes per year of cargo and boasts a fully integrated bulk cargo handling system, together with six deep water berths. The port specializes in dry bulk cargo for example, cement, sugar and grains.

Thus began our first attempts to attract multinational companies, because they were the major producers of technological products. The strategy was successful because first the world economy [?] was booming at that time; and second because the multinationals were looking for new low-cost areas to shift their manufacturing operations to.