Singapore polymer industry

This paper de.scribes the Singapore polymer industry, examines the types of polymer education available at the various institutions, and makes some comments on the congruence of the education programmes and the current, and future, demands of the industry. 

The Polymer industry embraces the total spectrum of activities from petrochemical cracking, monomer preparation, polymer production and the fabrication of all manner of plastics and rubber products. In addition there is an increasing number of technical. service and or research laboratories being established by local and multi-national companies to support their efforts in Singapore and or throughout the Asia Pacific Region. 

Not all product production is moving to China. While production of many consumer products migrates to China, fewer industrial or commercial products do. The sector that has seen the most extensive transfer of manufacturing activity from the USA to China is power cord, which is dominated by consumer market applications. Teknor Apex (Pawtucket, RI) acted to hold on to its migrating customer base when it acquired Singapore Polymer Corp (SPC) in 2001. The subsidiary compounds speciality PVC grades to the same specifications required in the USA, including UL and NSF certification, at a 70 000 tonnes/y facility. 

Polymer education programmes started at the Singapore Polytechnic in 1967 which were then oriented towards rubber. Today these courses are oriented to plastics reflecting the industry situation. There are several places of learning which offer a range of education programmes at most levels, and or carry out research on polymer science and technology. 

Johnson Polymer Ltd., Singapore Office, Block 213, Henderson Rd., 04-11, Henderson Industrial Park, Singapore, 159553, Singapore (Tel 65 6272 2338 FAX 65 6271 7956)... 

There are now 14 member societies of the PPF, comprising. In addition to the founding societies The Society of Polymer Science of Korea (1988), the Macromolecular Science and Engineering Division of the Chemical Institute of Canada (1988), the Polymer and Industrial Section of the Malaysian Institute of Chemistry (1988), the Polymer Division of the Chinese Chemical Society of the People s Republic of China (1989), the Polymer Group of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry (1989), the Division of High Polymer Physics of the American Physical Society (1990), the Plastics and Rubber Institute of Singapore (1990), the Polymer Society, Taipei (1993), the Division of Polymers and Organic Materials of the Mexican Academy of Materials Sciences (1993), the Division of Polymer Science of the Chemical Society of Vietnam (1993) and the Indonesian Polymer Association (1993). 

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