Lunch is served

Who say there is no free lunch? Monsoon Manila provides lunch for our staff as part of the benefits working for the company. They are also provided with nice uniform which are changed depending on the days of the week.

I always enjoy having lunch with the staff during my visit to Manila, to bond and be bonded, it is good bonding. I wish we could have the same practice in Singapore. A company that eats together stays together.

Lunch is brought from outside vendor because cooking are not allowed within the premises. During tea break, staffs are provided with some snacks and free flow of drinks throughout the day.

Work hard, eat well.

Faces of Monsoon

Sir Dojie - He is our operations manager in Monsoon Manila. Another Monsooner on the front line.

Nothing is too difficult for Dojie, he find solutions for any problems - he is our man on the spot. Hands on - available 24/7. He is never fazed, always smiling, forever cheerful, dispensing advices and suggestions.

Our operations and accounts team in Manila - they are the faces of Monsoon. Yes Sir, They take good care of our pinoy crew and their families.

Seamen Market

If you are looking for a seaman, you go to the seaman market.

Lawrence, he is our "marketing manager" - he is our head hunter - sometime he heads for the seaman market - but he has got lots of other contacts. There is a big demand for seamen. By hook or by crook, by means fair or foul, "Dirty Larry" - He works hard to find us the seamen to fill up the job vacancies.

A Geologist from Monsoon

Have you ever seen a geologist?

Here is Dennis, he just completed a swing onboard the Pacific Titan in New Zealand, came straight from the airport to report to Monsoon Manila before going for his well earned but short vacation and then he is headed for training in Paris.

Dennis is a Monsooner. He is young, smart, very personable, professional, confident, with a good future ahead of him.

All the way, a true green Monsooner

Ordonex - He has been with us since the early 90's - he is another very loyal Monsooner. He is now going to join the Vardholm.

A company is make of all these people working together. We may not be a big company, but we stake our future together, irregardless of race, nationalities or religion. 16 years is a long time - in fact, almost a full career are spent by many a Monsooners with our company. How do you value such a relationship?

Eliza, John Simmons, Ordonex and many many others - we are Monsoon.

Once a Monsooner

John Simmons has been with Monsoon since the start in 1991 - he has left for other company for some years but now, he is going to come back. Once a Monsooner, always a Monsooner. I am so happy to see him again after all these years.

Eliza

Eliza Perando has been with us since 2001 in Accounts, Monsoon Manila. She will be leaving to settle down in Toronto Canada this coming June. She has serves us with great distinction in being meticulous and her quiet dedication. We are sorry she is leaving. On the other hand, we are very happy for her and her children. It must be a big decision to leave one's home country to settle in a new country. No doubt it brings new opportunity and a good future for her and her children. All of us wish her the best and success in her new life ahead.

Tea Party and Memory

Last saturday, I attended a tea party hosted by the parents support group (PSG) for Raffles Girls School together with my wife. It was a chance to meet up with all the wonderful parents who have volunteer their time and efforts to raise funds, support the school and its students.

The school principal's Deborah is about the most dedicated and nicest principal I have met so far. She make sure to attend as many of the PSG and its many committee meetings whenever she could, aside from her busy daily schedule. She is always smiling, cheerful, patiently working closely with the parents in their many projects through the academic year, such as racial harmony day, golf tournament, teachers appreciation day etc.

There are maybe two or three tea parties organised for the parents each year giving opportunities to network, build up a strong relationship, exchange views, understanding better the issues regarding their teenage daughters etc. At such tea parties, it is usual to combine it with a talk or demonstration on some subject of interest to the attending parents.

At this particular tea party, there was this guy from India who is the world champion on memorising all sorts of stuff. He demonstrated he could remember a set of maybe 30 random numbers and read them out after listening to them once. Not only that, he could read the numbers out backward. This guy is a rather engaging and humourous fellow, very good talker. His business is memory. He probably earns a lot of money by teaching business people and students the arts of memory.

Such method of memorising, Is it useful? Quite, but again not quite convincing at least to me. It is interesting and amazing how he can remember by visualising, linking the objects or data he has to remember. It does not appear to me that the process involve any understanding, it is just a method of remembering that probably can be trained but I highly doubt how much can be remembered and as such data accumulate in our mind, how long can we remember all these data, most of which become quite useless and irrelevant after a while.

In our business, it is important to remember people, their name and other personal datas for example which ships they joined, when and where, what certificates they hold etc. Then there are the social information about them, their wife, their children, the schools they attended etc.

As if that is not enough, We have to remember tonnes of regulations, ships details, terms of employment, wages of the crew, customers information. Dates of important events etc. Telephone numbers, passwords etc etc.

Whether in shipping, crewing or other business, having a good memory certainly is important. Of course we are very much assisted nowaday by IT, databases, PDA, internet etc which retain all sorts of information and data you need in your daily business and social life. So the more IT, the less memory we need to retain in our brain.

I kept all sorts of stuff in my computer, after a while, I forget where I kept them - Google has a desktop search function which is argueably the most important IT invention ever, as far as I am concerned. I had this free software installed on all my computers. You just type in a key word, voila... presto... - all sorts of documents, emails in your computer containing the keyword will be found within the next one or two seconds. I am not exaggerating. With such tools, It is no wonder I become even more forgetful. Its just like some of us reaching out for a calculator nowaday because we forget how, lack of practice or have become too lazy to mentally calculate even simple additions or multiplication.

Now, what was I saying???

Reunion with Mr YK Tan

Our reunion of Polytechnic MRO Course year 72/73 was so good we decided on another reunion but this time it is even more meanginful because we manage to invite Mr YK Tan - our lecturer 37 years ago. We are glad Mr Tan is still fit and healthy. He is really the most obliging and helpful person I know, and the most dedicated teacher to all of us.

Tomorrow our dear friend CS (Sparky) will be returning to the US. When will he be back again? When will we see each other again. The camaradie has been rekindled by our recent reunions. Our friendship is forever.

For some of us, we are enjoying regular golf together. HK, our most active guy make sure to get in touch with everyone every so often. This posting on my blog will commemorate our reunion today with our dear lecturer Mr Tan - we have never seen him lose his temper even as some of us remember ourselves not being the most ideal students, quite a few of us, myself included, depended a lot on him to help us get through the examinations. You can say our sailing career has been launched under his careful guidance. I guess we will not be able to honour him as what our Myanmar RIT alumni did for their sayagyi but in our mind and heart, Mr Tan, he is our dear Sayagyi. Someone we will never forget.

Livestock carrier

This is a maritime blog, so its time to show you at least one ship photo.

I took this photo last sunday 15th April out at anchorage. I enjoy taking photograph of ships. Monsoon has been supplying some crew to this ship when she was the Rodolfo Mata. She is the world largest livestock carrier. I surf the net and quickly came up with some background information of this ship. Her name is DENEB PRIMA.

Can you imagine 120,000 sheeps onboard. Can you imagine the smells?

Siba bought the world’s largest livestock carrier, M/V Rodolfo Mata (TBR M/V Deneb), from Pan United. Originally a container vessel, it was converted into a livestock carrier by Pan United in 2002 and upgraded to make her fully compliant with latest Solas regulations, a requirement by AMSA (Australian Maritime Safety Authority) to be able to issue permits to load livestock in Australia beyond January 2007. The Deneb can carry a maximum load of 120,000 sheep or 25,000 cattle, or any combination of the two species.

Reunion at Newton

Today we have a nice reunion with 9 of our class of 72/73 MRO, honouring the visit of Chai Siang to Singapore. CS has been working and living in silicon valley and the US for about 20 years - he is just about the smartest of our class and has done well in various senior engineer positions dealing with circuit design and other IT hardware work beyond my understanding. All of us can be said to have done well after serving time at sea as radio officers. Most of us then came ashore and find work which eventually bring us to where we are today. I must say our class of 72 has produces quite a few successful professionals and businessmen, not quite prominent but considering the humble beginning we started from, our achievement is quite impressive. I am proud to be associated with my alumni. Beside the professional and business achievement, we have successfully provided for our family. Our children has grown up, done well in school, some has started working life. We are waiting to be invited to wedding dinners and becoming grandfathers. Life has almost come a full circle.

Next year, our batch will be due to collect our CPF or whatever left there to be encashed. Not that we will need it for our daily expenses, but still it does denote a milestone, a signal that we are moving on toward our next phase of life where we can devote more time for ourselves, spend time visiting our old friends and perhaps play more golf together.

We grew up at a time when Singapore was industrialising so there has been opportunities for us. Our parents struggled for us, eking out a living and providing us a good education. Now the world has changed and become more competitive. Singapore has become a first world country. At this stage, we can look forward to enjoy the fruits of our labour. We are much more fortunate than our parents and we look forward our children will do much better than us in life.

Even as we see in each of us, grey hairs and receding hair lines, all of us can see the same friends and their uniqueness as it has been 35 years ago. 35 years is a long time, much water has flow under the bridge but the value system that hold us together, it is not much changed. We have matured, some of us faced much adversity and challenges. I like to think it must have make us a better person, more matured, filled with wisdom gained from a life time of experience. Most of us are still contributing and productive and for many more years. For some of us, we may want to take a slower pace and enjoy the years while we still have good health and friends to enjoy together.

Waiting, waiting ...

Today, I went for a meeting with one of my customer scheduled for 1500 hours. I was there 5 minutes before, waited for about 15 minutes before someone kindly came out of the meeting to tell me to wait another 15 minutes. I went for a cup of coffee, return and waited for another 15 minutes. So, in all about one hour of waiting before I politely informed the receptionist I have to go off because I have other things I need to do.

Meetings with this customer are invariably late or postponed. My customer is really busy and have too many things to do. I have yet to hear from him since if there should be another meeting or reason why my meeting did not materialise. I think my customer has forgotten about our meeting or he is still too busy to call me.

That's why shipping is so interesting, we meet people of all kinds and different culture. Being late and being kept waiting are not acceptable in some countries like Japan, Norway, China, Singapore etc but normal in countries like India, Malaysia etc. Even then, for most businesses, everyone nowaday adopt the modern concept to be punctual and try not keep others waiting.

What can we say about people who are habitually late or make others wait for them? Even in this busy and rushing city lifestyle, some basic courtesy, manners and ethics must be observed. I think much can be learned from such episode which I take this opportunity to share with my readers, not so much in anger but to reflect on how we can become a better person to our own benefit if we show more care and concern for our fellow human being.

Some form of waiting are meant to show superiority. The less important guys are expected to wait for the more important "Tua Liap Nang" (Big Shot). The bigger the shot, the longer the waiting. It is common in Myanmar and Philippines, crew applying for job have to wait and wait for hours to get an interview which may perhaps last 5 minutes. These crew may have travelled for many hours from the provinces to attend such interviews.

For many years, ship's crew are far down the maritime eco system, so they have generally been sloppily treated by one and all, they accept it as their fate. I have from the start of Monsoon instructed my various offices no crew should be make to wait longer than necessary. I think I have mostly achieved my benchmark. If we do not like waiting, then we should not make people wait for us, at least not habitually.

I have a benchmark for answering phone calls in my office. The phone should not ring for more than three times before it is picked up. You can test us by calling 63278662 during our office hour and see if it is true or not.

In office management, we not only learn from best practices. When we come across a negative experience, it is good to reflect if we have similiar shortcomings within our own organisation and works towards improving such shortcomings. In this way, a negative experience can be turn into something positive for ourselves.

I have another way of looking at such situation. When I go to some countries where the services are not so efficient compare to Singapore, I give thanks such difference in service standards are what keeping us in business. Conversely, many years back, I have seen for myself super fast and high level service standard in a leisurely, second rated city in China, I became alarm enough to remind myself and warn my children to ensure we not be complacent or be mistaken that the third world countries are not able to compete with us even as we are constantly assured we are the best, we are the most productive etc.

Maritime Crew Visa etc.

The Australian government will be implementing a maritime crew visa (MCV) requirement from 1st January 2008 with transitional period from 1st July 2007. All crew joining ships at Australian ports as well as those onboard ships bound for Australia will have to have this MCV.

Application for this visa will be free of charge, through internet, valid for 3 years. Details can be found at this website http://www.immi.gov.au/sea/mcv/index.htm

The process is well thought through and imposed a minimun inconvenience to the crew and us as crew manning agent. I appreciate the clear and timely information, transparent, professional and user friendly approach. Minimun paperworks for all concerned. I tested the website by asking some questions. The response from the responsible officer in charge is very fast and concise. Impressive. I hope implementation will be successful for all concerned.

I believe the use of internet application and electronic visa will become more and more common place in the near future. The potential tremendous saving of time and expenses is just being realised.

This bring to mind my pet peeve when travelling, there is this arrival/departure card we often have to fill in with lots of redundant questions. I cannot imagine anyone going through such useless information for statistical or any other useful purpose. How come no one thought of collecting these information, if needed in a more efficient manner. Such cards commonly wanted to know which hotel you are going to stay, how many days you intend to stay etc.

When applying for visa for many countries, you are still require to queue, wait for hours, pay a large sum of money and come back a few days later to collect your visa. Visa forms can now quite often be downloaded from the internet but they are still asking questions like your father's name and other irrelevant details. Looks like we still have a long way to go ....

I have recently collected my PSA pass - the new card requires you to scan in your finger prints - well and good. I just wonder why then do we need to have the passcard? When we are going to enter the port, why not just take our finger prints at the gate and match it with their database with photographs and other personal details to match? For citizens, why not just show our NRIC at the gates, they can match the NRIC with their database if we have a legitimate reason to enter the port.

It may well be there are good reasons why the white card, visa forms and PSA pass have to be so, but maybe there is a way to simplify the process?

Paperworks swamping Crews, says shipmanagers

Seafarers are struggling to cope with paperworks and it is getting worse with implementation of new rules and regulations.

I was forwarded a news article from the Lloyds List by Ms G, one of our shipping friend. I just give you the title and short summary of this article as shown above. It addresses one of many crew related issues in our industry. We will probably hear more of this problem from the unions and in ship management conferences. Is there a solution? "The whole process has become unrealistic", "Are seafarers able to implement all the changes?" , " To use an officer as a paper clerk, maybe we are wasting his time...."

What does this mean for crew managers like Monsoon? I believe IT and computerisation is the way forward. Of course we all have to periodically review, find way to reduce our administrative and documentation processes. Such processes tend to become more and more complicated.

Administrative work such as payroll and victualling, crew records etc can be administered ashore and send onboard by soft copies. Monsoon has over the years developed our own software for payroll. We only require the ship to return the variables such as overtime and cash advance. The feedback from the ships concerning our system has been favourable, they are thankful we have actively reduce their administrative workload onboard.

In Singapore, the immigrations has now online facilities for applying immigration clearance and for signing on and off crew - this help reduce the paperworks for the agents as well as for the ship. Port clearance has for many years been much simplified compared to previous system.

There are many commercial softwares dealing with crewing as well as other shipmanagement functions such as planned maintenance system, for ISM and other IMO requirements. Of course, this means much data entries work for those onboard, unavoidable but perhaps much easier than forms filling, repeating of information, filing, photocopying etc.

So, perhaps the article highlight only the problem but does not review how modern technology may have reduces some other aspect of the seafarers work - take for example electronic chart and the old system of chart corrections.

The more progressive countries and companies will always find a way to deal with the increasing paperworks before they become a problem. This will increase their competitive advantage. For others, it is important to keep abreast of such development, learn and share the industry best practices to help our seafarers and ourselves cope.

This articles and other feedbacks from the industry and the seafarers are important reminder to those responsible for new schemes and regulations, they must think through the implementation processes and avoid unnecessary paperworks as much as possible.

Blogging uncles

I have been ploughing through local blogs for some time now, discovering blogs like Chubby Hubby, Good Morning yesterday, Tan Kin Lian's blog, way before they become famous and got written about in the MSM (main stream media). I read through the many alternative views from political blogs, interesting views which you can never find in the MSM. The good blogs normally have lots of links to other interesting blogs so after a while, you will be well acquainted with most of the active local bloggers.

You may think blogging are mainly for hip and young teenagers, but most of those blogs I been through are set up by what I call Uncle Bloggers.

In Singapore, we address the more matured and perhaps a little old fashion guy as "Uncle" , correspondingly their female counterparts are addressed as "Aunties". "Uncles and Aunties" also denote an attitude, their characteristic mannerism, their way of life, not quite complimentary, but in this context, "Uncle Bloggers" should conjure up a matured, "cool", "with it" guy, someone with ideas and willing to share, not afraid to express himself (for better or worse) - just like the creator of the MONSOON Blog :-).

Some of these Uncle blogs are very well read judging by the active comments and frequent postings, establishing in the process a certain style and status which make them stands out among the thousands of blogs online, some of which I am sure, like MONSOON, are hardly visited by others beside the blogger himself and maybe, his immediate circle of friends.

Right now, I am enjoying my blog status as argueably, the first local maritime blog in Singapore, useful and interesting to my own niche readers. It's a little lonely, a voice in the wilderness, adrift, at sea. It's actually a good feeling, like a lonely seagull enjoying the fresh seabreeze, but more should come onboard, and soon.

More shipping people should blog, then we get a lively community and create a buzz online just as Singapore is a great shipping hub, buzzinglingly exciting. A place to see and be seen. A place to make lots of money.

I hope to get more comments on my postings. Active engagement and comments will encourage more better blogs of this genre. I hope to improve the quality of my postings as I learn from other more experienced bloggers by reading their postings. Comments and suggestion from my readers will help me define my blog as it matures.

Readers may have noticed that recent postings in this blog have move a little away from the maritime related issues of earlier postings. No fear, my aim is to move back to more industry specific issues soon enough but always intersperse with postings of general nature as and when such issues strike my fancy.

Afterall, its a place for me to express myself. I blog, therefore I am.

Thingyan (Water Festival) 13th to 16th April 2007

Thingyan Water Festival marks the start of the Burmese lunar calendar New Year, which occurs in mid-April—at the height of summer heat. The festival is celebrated with water as a symbol of the follow of time, washing away past misdeeds to provide spiritual renewal, and greeting the up-coming monsoon to bring a bountiful new beginning.The three-day festival in Burma is celebrated with splashing water, performances, courtship, and general good cheer.

The elders of the family and community are treated to special services, such as hair washing, massage, house cleaning, and cooking elaborate meals. Interestingly, this used to be the only time when some of the social constraints are suspended enabling anyone to express their grievances and opinions freely and publicly through skits and songs.

The above description of Thingyan was taken from a website of the ThinGyan Association, founded in 1992 in New York City with the mission to keep alive the traditional arts and culture of Burma.

Monsoon wishes all our Myanmar friends, our Myanmar crew and their families, a Happy and joyous Thingyan.

Iskandar Development Region (IDR)

I have been following with interest, recent news about the Iskandar Development Region in Johor. The IDR is now getting top attention. It is 3 times the size of Singapore, lots of empty land available for development.

Yesterday I visit Nusajaya, the capital of the IDR, it was buzzing with activities. I could see the potential what it can be within the next few years if the grand plan are successfully carried out.

Due to the Easter holiday, we were stuck for nearly two hours before we clear the Johor immigrations, this is probably a rare occurence but still not a nice start to those who are driving up for their holidays. The immigration booths were all open, the Malaysian immigrations officers were all working hard, very nice and friendly contrary to the horror stories often told by Singaporean and reported in the local newspapers.

There must be many opportunities for Singaporean especially but relationship between Singapore and Johor has seen a lots of ups and downs. I hope we can look forward now to better closer co-operations for the benefits of all concerned.

EASTER HOLIDAYS

Judging by their response, Some of my Catholic friends must have been pleasantly surprised to receive an SMS greeting from me as I am not normally a very expressive person. It 's just a short SMS "HAPPY EASTER".

In modern context, a formerly strictly religious holiday quite often become a holiday celebrated by one and all even if they do not subscribe to the same religion. I think it is OK so long as it is not crassly commercialised, or a westernisation process that overwhelm our local culture.

Today, on Yahoo, I learn that Pope Benedict has written a book reflecting on what the rich countries did to the poor, plundering their resources in AFRICA and eslewhere.

The German Pope, who has condemned the effects of colonialism before, said rich countries had also hurt poor countries spiritually by belittling or trying to wipe out their own cultural and spiritual traditions.


EASTER is an important holiday for our Catholic friends - super long weekend for our Norwegian friends.

For our hard working Filipino colleagues, it will be hopefully a good respite from the daily drugery, spending long hours in office and long hours on the road to work and back home - but despite such difficult conditions, I know Filipino are much happier than Singaporean. Why?

I think we must learn to relax more in Singapore, learn from our Filipino friends, be spontaneous, be joyful. Take time to smell the roses, have time for our family and friends.

This is a time to remember our crew who are away at sea, away from their families. I wish them happy EASTER holidays.

and dear readers, HAPPY EASTER.

Rangoon Institute of Technology (RIT)

Yesterday a big group of about 80 RIT Alumni arrived in Singapore from Yangon. I understand in total over a thousand of their alumni will be here for a grand reunion. There will be sightseeing, dinners follow by a ceremonial Saya Kataw Pwe at the Myanmar Buddhist temple at Tai Gin Road and a grand reunion dinner at the Orchid Country Club on 7th April.

Many of RIT Alumni has been working at sea as engineers including our operations manager U Htay Aung 75/MECH who came with his wife (also RIT alumni 75/MECH) and their youngest daughter. Many of them are professionals working in Singapore, ASEAN region, Australia and US.

What is particularly remarkable to me is the close bonds these alumni has built up, their obvious love and pride for their motherland university, its glorious history and achievement during the nation building years. It is very heartwarming the rectors, pro rectors, HODs, lecturers and old teachers (Sayagyi & Sayama) are all invited, sponsored by the alumni for all their biennial reunions. The traditional way these old sayagyi and sayama are honored remind us of our beautiful Asian tradition of respect and veneration of our parents, teachers, elders and the elderly.

For this reunion to take place in a fast paced modern city like Singapore where hundreds of RIT Alumni have settled down, it must be a very emotional connection back to their old society. It is also a sad reminder of the progress that has been missed by Myanmar including the braindrain of her elites to the benefit of cities like Singapore.

I am proud to be associated with the Myanmar people, the many good and loyal friends like U Than Win, U Htay Aung, U Henry, U Win Ngwe, U Ye Myint Pe, U Khin Maung Min etc etc. They have always treated me like one of their brothers. It is quite coincidental the very location of the Myanmar buddhist temple is in the neighbourhood where I spent my childhood years living in a now demolished kampong.

I wish U Htay Aung, his wife San Yu May, all my other Myanmar RIT friends a joyous and successful alumni reunion in Singapore. May the friendship among the citizens of our two countries in particular, ASEAN and the Monsoon region in general grow even deeper. I hope we will all develop and prospers together in the years to come.

MaritimeONE

Yesterday, our assistant manager Ju Gek attended the launching of MaritimeONE, a network for maritime stakeholders to raise awareness and attract good people to the industry. The inaugural function was held at the DXO, a pub located at the trendy Esplanade Theatres Mall, across the road from Suntec City where the SEA Asia exhibition and conference was held.

Through these initiatives, Singaporean youth are given a taste of maritime jobs with career talks, quizes, tour around the port and visit to the SEA ASIA exhibition etc.

The first batch of Maritime Studies graduates from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) will be ready for deployment next year.

It is important more, better educated young men and women continue to be attracted to the industry. It is even more important that their initial entry into the industry are actively welcome with attractive wages, interesting career and structured on the job training etc.

We should understand the aspiration of these young men and women, their expectation, their ambition.

Would companies who are currently employing expatriate managers with years of experience actively create sufficient junior positions and invest in time and expenses required to train up this new pool of local managers? We have seen how even now, shipping companies would not accept cadets or create more junior training positions onboard as these are long term commitment while their current urgent requirement are for experienced senior officers and engineers.

Will the gender bias in the industry be changed fast enough or will the young women coming into the industry be prepared to rough it out in a male dominated environment? Are we ready to accept female cadets onboard ships?

Would those older managers who are non graduates accept the new ways of their younger graduate colleagues?

Would the current expectation to work long and irregular hours be modified to accomodate these young people or will they accept this as part and parcel of shipping work?

Will the young people be attracted only towards the more glamorous part of the industry such as ship broking, ship financing or would they work in the bunkering business, crew manning for example?

It is natural young people will be attracted to work for the bigger organisations. How will the smaller companies attract their fair share of young talent?

SEA ASIA 2007

I went onboard today to an offshore supply vessel at SOPS, it was a very hot day. The port is buzzing with activities, I noticed a giant jackup rig there, a survey ship called SURVEYOR and another specialist vessel SHASHA.

Today is the opening of the inaugural SEA Asia conference and exhibition - I understand it was very well attended. The mood for shipping is pretty upbeat, I cannot remember a better time for shipping - everything is booming. Lets hope it will last for a while yet.

In attending shipping events, I observe more or less the same personalities are making the rounds, they are getting more matured. I hope more young men and women will be attracted into the industry to bring it to the next level, keep Singapore humming along, build it up to be an even greater international maritime centre than it is today.