WELCOME SPEECH
27 March 2007
By
Mr George Huang
Chairman
Singex Group

Guest of Honour, Prof S. Jayakumar, Deputy Prime Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Law, Mr Wong Kan Seng, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Home Affairs and our Global Security Asia Host Minister, Assoc Prof Ho Peng Kee, Senior Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs, distinguished ministers, your Excellencies, members of the press, ladies and gentlemen - it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Global Security Asia 2007. To our overseas Guests and VIP Delegations, a very warm welcome to Singapore.

I am delighted to see such an international gathering of specialists and professionals from the security, intelligence and defence communities along with senior representatives from government and industry. Your presence here today bears testimony to the continuing importance of Homeland Security in our region. This event, Global Security Asia 2007, now the second in the Series, comprises an Exhibition and a Conference dedicated to Homeland Security and is held again in Singapore specifically for the Asia Pacific region.

I am pleased to report that the Exhibition continues to receive good support from the industry to showcase their products and services. For the first time, we have an officially endorsed Singapore Pavilion fully supported by International Enterprise Singapore. We also have the UK Pavilion supported by the UK Defence Manufacturers Association and the Australian Pavilion, also for the first time, fully endorsed by the Australian Trade Commission. The USA Pavilion is about 25% larger than in the 2005 Show. We also have considerable support from France, Germany, Israel and Italy.

This year’s Conference with the theme EMERGING THREATS – NEW TECHNOLOGIES, will present a good balance between politico-strategic discussions and new technologies. Through the joint efforts of our two Co-Chairs, Dr Rohan Gunaratna and Dr Peter Varnish, various international experts in their respective fields have kindly agreed to address many challenging homeland security issues. A total of 42 papers will be presented. We are sure that the Conference will be professionally rewarding to all.

In terms of Visitors, we are privileged to welcome 29 Official VIP Delegations to the Show. This is a significant increase over the 2005 Event when we received 15 Official Delegations. This gathering of distinguished Ministers and Heads of Professional Services from the Homeland Security field reflects the growing importance of the GSA Series in the Asia Pacific Region as the premier forum dedicated to Homeland Security. We are also expecting more than 6000 Trade and Professional Visitors to the Exhibition.

With the continuing cooperation between the Governments in the Asia Pacific Region and their agencies, together with the private sector, we are confident that Global Security Asia will continue to grow over the years and continue to serve as an invaluable industry platform. We believe we can continue to create this unique platform for the global community to network, establish new contacts, renew partnerships and hopefully ultimately offer solutions to the global security threats.

The Global Security Asia 2007 Event would not have been possible without the full support and close cooperation of the Host Organisation, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the international industry, for which we are grateful. I would also like to express our deepest thanks to Deputy Prime Minister Prof Jayakumar for kindly agreeing to grace this Event as our Guest of Honour.

I wish all of you a very successful and professionally rewarding event and a memorable stay in Singapore.

Thank you.

Keynote Address