Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning.

Thank you for joining us here today as we commission MPA's new buoy tender vessel, "Panduan".

Singapore's heritage as a maritime nation extends back to our early beginnings as an entrepot port some 190 years ago. Since then, Singapore has grown into a premier global hub port and an international maritime centre with more than 5,000 maritime establishments here today. On an average day, there are some 1,000 vessels in our waters and I am told that vessel arrival tonnage has already surpassed last year's record figures.

As the port authority and port regulator, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (or MPA), has the crucial role of ensuring the navigational safety of vessels in our waters and the Singapore Strait. MPA performs this role by providing and maintaining visual and electronic Aids to Navigation as well as leveraging on two state-of-the-art Port Operations Control Centres. Despite the technological capabilities on hand, proper and adequate Aids to Navigation, such as lighthouse, beacons and navigational buoys, continue to play an important role in guiding vessels safely into our waters.

To this extent, MPA maintains 121 navigational buoys and 97 mooring buoys. These maintenance works have been carried out by our very own buoy tender vessel for the past 17 years. Commissioned in the year 1995 and named "Panduan", the existing buoy tender vessel has done her job diligently in maintaining the navigational and mooring buoys in our waters. Despite the present vessel's limited capability, she has been one of the workhorses of MPA's fleet. She was even occasionally deployed to remove debris from the seabed and performed other duties such as deployment during marine incidents and the installation of tidal current meters.

With the continued growth in vessel arrival tonnage and the increase in the size of vessels calling at the Port of Singapore, it is important to ensure that the Aids to Navigation are adequate, more conspicuous and able to clearly mark out Singapore's shipping lanes and anchorages.

In 2011, MPA made the decision to replace "Panduan" with a vessel that is better able to meet the increasing demand on our port. Designed and built at a cost of S$4.8 million, we felt that the name "Panduan" should be retained as it means 'guidance' in Malay. This is significant to the core responsibility of the vessel, which is to lay navigational buoys that provide guidance for mariners in and out of our port waters. In addition to being able to handle larger buoys, the new "Panduan" is also able to achieve a higher cruising speed using greener engines and has a higher lifting capacity of 10 tons. These features facilitate the maintenance works and also increase the level of safety of the operations that are performed by MPA's dedicated team of Hydrographic officers. In addition to her primary role as a buoy tender, she is also equipped with fire fighting equipment and oil dispersant re-supply capabilities to support our patrol vessels responding to oil spill cases.

I am confident that with our new buoy tender vessel the new Panduan, we will be well placed to ensure the safety of navigation in our waters alongside the growth in Singapore's port and shipping operations.

I would also like to take this opportunity to extend our thanks to our staff, our partners, including China-based Ningbo Foreign Trade Co Ltd and Marine Expert (Zhao Qing) Shipyard Co Ltd, who have worked hard to officially hand-over our new buoy tender, "Panduan", today.

Thank you.