Minister for National Development Khaw Boon Wan has encouraged local developers to adopt productive systems and machinery as well as elevate the skill competence of construction workers to increase productivity growth.
In his latest blog post yesterday, Mr Khaw wrote that the local industry can learn from Hong Kong and Changsha, China – which set a record-breaking achievement by building a 30-storey hotel in 15 days.
The prefabricated building was an Internet sensation in a video that showed 200 workers building the hotel in 360 hours.
“Our Building and Construction Authority (BCA) is visiting Changsha to glean some learning points for us,” said Mr Khaw.
Although China does not actually have high construction productivity, it has “the advantage of ample resources that can be quickly mobilised to achieve fast construction, often 24 hours round the clock.”
As for Hong Kong, it could work on a four to six-day cycle time on a standard one-story high-rise building, compared to seven to eight days for China and eight to 12 days for Singapore.
Another factor in Hong Kong is its pool of skilled local construction workers who are paid five times higher than those in Singapore.
“With such high labour cost, developers must find ways to standardise the construction work as much as possible to save on labour cost. As a result, their productivity is high and construction pace is fast,” added Mr Khaw.
He stressed the need for Singapore to elevate the skill level of its construction workers. “We must reduce the influx of less skilled foreign workers and steer the industry towards labour-saving construction methods.”
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