Mr Murali Pillai, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Law and Ministry of Transport,

Mr Loh Khum Yean, Chairman, Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore,

Mr Ishak Ismail, Chairman, National Maritime Safety at Sea Council,

Sister Mary Liew, General Secretary, Singapore Maritime Officers' Union,

Mr Randy Chen, Vice Chairman, Wan Hai Lines,

Colleagues from the Workplace Safety & Health Council and the Ministry of Manpower,

Ladies and Gentlemen,
 
Introduction

1.                Good morning and a very warm welcome to the Singapore Safety@Sea Symposium. 

2.                This is the opening event for the 13th edition of Safety@Sea Week. It is organised by MPA, with the support from the National Maritime Safety at Sea Council (NMSSC) and the MPA-Industry Safety Work Groups. 

3.                Keeping our maritime transport workers safe is critical, because they play an indispensable part in moving millions of tonnes of cargo and passengers safely and smoothly every day and every year. Ours is a tough sector, and their work exposes them to many risks and hazards. 

4.                Today, I want to highlight three areas where MPA hopes to continue working with everyone in our maritime community to strengthen our foundations and ensure that safety always remains our top priority.

Leveraging on Systems and Technology for Maritime Safety

5.                First, prevention begins with awareness. You cannot manage what you do not know. This is why we are building robust systems to give our people better visibility of risks, so that we can act before they become hazards or accidents. 

6.                Earlier this year, MPA launched OCEANS-X. This is MPA’s Government-to-Government and Government-to-Business digital platform. It allows ecosystem partners to discover, access and share data seamlessly within a common, standards based and interoperable environment. This means companies can get the information they need more quickly, and connect their systems directly with MPA services. By improving information sharing and situational awareness on both sides, we can identify risks earlier, make better decisions, and reduce unnecessary exposure to workplace hazards. 

7.                Complementing this is our Maritime Digital Twin. It is a dynamic, real-time digital replica of our port, which brings together live and synthetic data to model and test different scenarios to identify where things could go wrong. This helps us better understand past deficiencies and take preventive action earlier.

8.                MPA has also expanded the use of unmanned aerial systems in our port waters to strengthen our surveillance and response capabilities. For example, drones can help us identify vessels behaving recklessly, so that we can intervene before lives are put at risk. We also saw the value of drones firsthand during a recent fire incident at the container terminal, in which we actively used drones to support ship-based firefighting operations for the first time. Our drones used infrared imaging to help SCDF ground crew locate heat spots accurately. This supported the firefighting operations and enabled SCDF to extinguish the container fire onboard the vessel swiftly and effectively. 

Learning from Near Misses

9.                Second, we need to learn from near misses and have a way to share them, so that more people can benefit from the lessons learnt and prevent future accidents. 

10.               I am pleased that NMSSC and the Singapore Shipping Association are launching the Singapore Near Miss Reporting System today. This joint initiative is modelled on the Confidential Human Factors Incident Reporting Programme (CHIRP), which is an internationally recognised framework. It gives our sea space users a simple, online channel to report near misses without fear of reprisal. CHIRP acts as an independent third party, providing only anonymised data to the NMSSC, which then distils the key learnings for sharing with the wider maritime community.

11.               We applaud NMSSC and SSA for championing this initiative. This is exactly the kind of partnership that strengthens safety – through trust, shared ownership, and a genuine commitment to learning from experience. In particular, we want to make one point clear: Speaking up about a close call is not an admission of failure. It is an act of courage and care for your people. So, I urge everyone  to champion this within your organisations — make it safe for your crew and your officers to report without hesitation. Because every near miss that goes unreported is a lesson lost which could have saved a life tomorrow.

All Hands-on Deck – Safety First 

12.               Third, embedding a strong safety culture into an organisation requires commitment and dedication at all levels. It starts with leaders setting the right tone, is reinforced by managers and supervisors, and sustained by every worker taking responsibility for safety. 

13.               This is why this year's Safety@Sea Week is designed to reach across every level of our community. For senior management, we have the Marine and Maritime Leadership Breakfast. For middle management, we have the expanded Safety@Sea Community Conversation events. And for our frontline workers, we have introduced the new Crew Safety Awareness Workshop, covering battery fire safety, sea survival techniques and the proper use of personal flotation devices. The message is clear: Safety is everyone’s responsibility – from the boardroom and all the way to the deck and engine room. 

14.               In the true spirit of "All Hands-on Deck", I am pleased to see more companies organising their own safety initiatives as part of Safety@Sea Week this year. We have 12 industry-led events this year, a significant increase from previous years. Thank you to all our partners for stepping up. 

Conclusion

15.               At the heart of everything that we will discuss this week is our people. Our workers give their utmost every day, often working in challenging and demanding environments. 

16.               This is especially so in the maritime sector, where seafarers, port workers and operators work under pressure to keep our economy and our nation moving. They do their part for their employers and for Singapore. It is only right that we do our part to keep them safe. Every one of them deserves to work in a safe environment and, at the end of the day, return home safely to their loved ones.

17.               Thank you for your partnership and your commitment to keeping our waters and workers safe. I wish you all a meaningful week ahead.