Industrial giant GE to invest up to $81.4m in new repair centre here
American industrial giant General Electric (GE) will invest up to US$60 million (S$81.4 million) to develop its gas turbine repair capabilities here.
The investment will be channelled into a new repair engineering and development centre for high-efficiency, air-cooled gas turbines over the next 10 years and is expected to add 160 advanced manufacturing jobs.
GE's existing facility employs about 250 workers, and it has more than 4,000 employees across its business units in Singapore.
The company said yesterday that the new repair centre, its first outside the Americas, will begin repairing components such as nozzles and blades in the first quarter of 2021.
GE has received more than 100 orders for the gas turbines across 18 countries.
LARGEST REPAIR SITE
The facility here, which spans more than 398,000 sq ft, will be GE's largest repair site globally in terms of production volume.
Mr Wouter Van Wersch, president and chief executive for GE in the Asia-Pacific, told The Straits Times at an event to mark the announcement of the new centre: "There's a great workforce, there are very strong customers and partners here."
Economic Development Board chairman Beh Swan Gin said at yesterday's event that GE's new centre can tap the strong engineering pool in Singapore and build up a team of highly skilled repair development engineers.
He also noted the International Energy Agency projects gas-fired power generation will overtake coal as the second largest energy source globally by 2030 and demand for GE's gas turbines is expected to grow.
"This investment will therefore be an important long-term contributor to Singapore's industrial output and support the Government's commitment to maintaining manufacturing at 20 per cent of our economy." - THE STRAITS TIMES
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