Thanks very much for letting me sit in on the conversations, and I was also so very heartened to hear the responses and the feedback. When you when you hear the conversations, and you see what we are actually trying to do, sometimes when people say we have no Singapore identity, I say, how can you say that. You just need to sit in and listen to our conversations about how we plan for the future, to know that we have a very distinct Singapore identity. 

The one thing that came out very clearly was, the values part – who are we as a people, and it would seem, from your conversations, and which is very similar to others, as a people we are very caring, we want inclusivity, we don't want anybody to feel left out. And that's correct, because Singapore was built and founded on the idea that this must be a place for all Singaporeans. We framed it originally as irrespective of race, language, religion, but nowadays, we're also looking at special needs, being inclusive in terms of physical disabilities, mental health. 

So that idea that Singapore is home, is a place where everybody can belong, where everybody can interact with each other, access things equally, and that sort of flat society – that is represented by hawker centres, because it's a place where everybody goes, it speaks to the heart of all of us. 

So I think values really anchor our vision for future Singapore. And the ideas that you have all put forward about inclusivity, and making sure that everybody can have access – whether it's access to housing, access to amenities. The idea really is, that we must make sure that this is a place which is for everyone. That was one of my key takeaways. That would translate itself into both the hardware – because when you're building, you have to make sure it's barrier free. But it’s also the software – because the software must be such that, if we are going to be a digital future nation, those are not so digitally savvy, must also be able to participate. So that's on inclusivity. 

Then the next thing on sustainability. That's a very broad topic. But again, you can see our love of nature. Borne maybe from the fact that we started off as a Garden City, but now in the COVID situation, it is accentuated because people just feel that they need to breathe. You need to have green spaces; you need to be able to have head space. You need some time away from everybody else. Far from the madding crowd, as it were, where you can breathe, you can think, you can just have a little timeout for yourself. And being so small, and being so compact, there’s obviously limited spaces, NParks has done a wonderful job over the years.

But hearing and listening to you, it would look like future Singapore needs to have – one, more of this; two, we need to be thoughtful in how it's designed. One of the suggestions was to see how we could reduce noise pollution coming into the green spaces – whether you can remove slip road, side roads; another possibility is you plant more trees so that they act as a buffer to prevent the noise from coming in. But whatever it is, we need more green spaces, not just for our physical health, but for our mental health as well, and also so that people connect with nature. 

Now tied up with this, is the idea of climate change and being sustainable. As a country, as a nation and as a government, we've put climate change front and centre, because our whole future is going to depend on this. On a big picture level some of you may remember PM’s NDR a couple of years back, where he talked about how we're going to be focused on climate change and investing in Singapore's future. He mentioned we would likely have to spend $100 billion over the next 100 years, it will probably be more than that by the time we finish, but at least $100 billion in the next 100 years – in order to ensure coastal protection and to protect against rising sea levels. So, things like building polders around the coast to prevent water from coming in, raising Singapore's height with every new building, so that we stay ahead of the rising sea levels. All these would be investments of the future. 

But this idea of sustainable living, and sustainability goes way beyond that. You take land, for example, we have to be sustainable with land as well. I noticed that in one of the chats, there was discussion on lease expiring, and would it be possible to extend the leases. If you look at it from a sustainability viewpoint, that wouldn't be what we want to do. When you buy something, and buy a HDB flat for 99 years, you pay for that 99 years. At the end of it, it expires, but you've had good use in the 99 years. But do we want to keep extending a building, which is already aging, where the pipes will be leaking, where the concrete will be spalling, and where the whole design and build would have been built for 100 years, or 99 years before. We actually re-thinking about what we're doing, and PM spoke about this, I think three years ago, we do have a plan. 

Basically, as buildings and precincts age, you want to be able to take back that land and recycle it, and rebuild new precincts. By that time, in the future, 50 years from now, the buildings will probably be taller, technology will be better, the living environment will be very different. He talked about VERS, which is really our big plan for the future. And what we what we would do is, if you have a precinct, if there’s a vote in favour of VERS, the government will take back that precinct, it will redevelop that precinct. People will be giving up their flats at around 70 mark, then people have to go and live somewhere else. And what PM indicated in the NDR, was that they would be able to buy new flats in the same way as now. In other words, you buy a new flat, and you start again with another 99 years. 

And you can see that this is a sustainable cycle. Because what eventually we are doing, we are recycling all the land in Singapore, one part after another, renewing, rebuilding for future generations, for always giving value for whatever it is that you are buying. These are things that the plans are still being worked out, if you go back to that NDR where PM talked about it, you will see that we're thinking up very much in the future, about how you recycle entire precincts. 

Then on the sustainable living part, I just also wanted to mention a couple more things. A participant mentioned that you're a little bit worried about whether the government is committed to being green because of the Dover forest issue. Actually, the Dover forest issue is a very good example of (A) trade-offs, (B) our commitment to sustainability, and (C) I'll also point you to the bigger plans for sustainability. When the Dover forest issue first cropped up, we extended the time for the consultation. And at the end of the day, the trade-off is this, we also do need to build residential estates. 

At the same time, there's a desire for more green, and if we preserve all of that, then less space for residential estates. The end outcome for that, was half the space will be reserved for a nature park, the other half of that space, the forest, will be for the residential housing. 

But that's not all, because we must also look at that in the context of the other plan. So think about the whole of the Singapore Green Plan 2030. I'm not sure how many of you have actually read that. Please do have a look at it, just google SG Green Plan 2030. And you will see that we have very ambitious plans. One million trees – we want to plant one million trees by 2030. I urge all of you to get involved, that one is a great initiative. We want to quadruple our solar energy deployment by 2025. We want to reduce the waste sent to the landfill by 30% by 2030. And we want to have cleaner energy or clean cleaner fuel vehicles on our roads. There's a whole entire huge Green Plan there, and although it's not as “top of mind” as not using plastic bags, or not using plastic straws. The big moves that we make on sustainability there, will actually move the needle. 

That's why we have the largest floating solar farm in the world. HDB estates currently are starting to install solar panels on the roof, so that we can use the electricity, and the energy generated by those solar panels for the common services, and access is sold back to the grid. And we have a whole plan for Green Towns. All the ideas that you have put forward, will be factored into the development of the concepts for the Green Towns of the future. 

Some good news about the comments from one of the participants about multi-storey car parks, and the pedestrian overhead bridges. The new car parks have got lifts, and the older ones - we answered this question in Parliament - we've got about 540 older car parks without lifts. There’s a programme to retrofit all of these with lifts, the programme is under way. I'm not sure which area you are living in, but hopefully it will be reaching you soon. Every lift that we install in the older car parks cost us about $350,000. But we are committed to doing this, because we know there is elderly, there is disabled. It's very important for them to have accessibility. And for the pedestrian overhead bridges, same thing. LTA has a plan to have lifts for all of them eventually, but because there's so many, it will take a little bit of time to roll out. 

These are just some examples. But it brings me to a point that one of you made, to look at sustainability as a growth area – and you are exactly right. Sustainability is the new growth area, and it cuts across all sectors. Waste management, clean energy, recycling, even building – because how you build, the materials that you build, you need new technologies for this, all of that is just going to be a huge area. Professional services – because you will need to learn how to do green bonds, you will need to learn how to assess for sustainability, if you're in the finance sector, you're going to be also looking at how do you do project finance for sustainable projects. So yes, big growth area. 

Then on the infrastructure part of it, from the feedback that I see, there are many good ideas on how we can improve our living environment and our working environment. And I also get that sense that people want community. I heard more than a few suggestions for community spaces where you live. Which also tells us something else about ourselves. Although we want our own private space, we also like congregating, we like that idea of being able to be in touch with our neighbours, that kampong spirit. We're trying to figure out a way of how to design the precincts such that you can have that kampong spirit, and yet at the same time, have your own private, personal, individual, and family space. 

So it's actually quite exciting if you think what Singapore can do. Even the old fossil fuels, Jurong Island and so on, we are already starting to look to see how this can become part of the green economy, repurposed. How we can redirect industries, how we can encourage new investments, looking at things like carbon capture, hydrogen, carbon storage. We haven’t come to a landing yet, but we're already starting to look at this. We can make Singapore a place that is green and sustainable, not just in terms of parks and trees, but your entire way of living. Where we don't waste anything, or we waste very little, we recycle it, and yet at the same time able to make a good living from it, and become a shining example for the rest of the world. That's the sort of future we would be looking at, and all of this will be built on your ideas. 

I just want to say a big thank you to all of you. One underlying point that people pointed out in today’s conversation, was that as we change our way of life, we also have to change mindsets; and it begins with each and every one of us. But you do get a sense that things are moving, that there is a new energy that's coming out of this post-COVID. COVID really forced people to focus on what's important – family, clearly; health, definitely; but also, the health of our planet, the future of work, the future of our country. This is what the Long-Term Plan Review is all about – positioning ourselves for the next fifty years and beyond. Thank you very much for your participation.