Government wants to grow Singapore's fledgling space and satellite industry: Iswaran

Ms Grace Parn, senior engineer in the Structural and Mechanical department with ST Electronics (Satellite Systems) poses with a model of the TeLEOS-1 satellite. PHOTO: ST FILE

SINGAPORE - Singapore's space and satellite industry is one of the new industry clusters that the Government will focus on growing, Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry ) S Iswaran said on Thursday (Nov 17).

He was speaking to reporters during a visit to Addvalue Technologies, a Singapore-listed communications technology company that moved into the development of satellite communications products in 2002.

Mr Iswaran initiated the visit to the company. "I think Addvalue's story is a really good example. They were in the consumer electronics space and they made a strategic decision to move into satellite communications, for land-based, sea-based and space-based applications," he said.

Addvalue is now finalising a joint lab collaboration with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research's (A*Star) Institute for Infocomm Research on enhanced satellite communication technologies, to work on creating new solutions that can link Addvalue's products to smart devices for example.

The joint lab will start operating from the second quarter next year.

Singapore's space and satellite industry currently comprises 30 companies and employs 1,000 people.

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