Speech by SMS Sim Ann at the Heartlands Festival Closing Ceremony
Feb 2, 2024
Mr Yeo Hiang Meng
Mr Kwek Theng Swee
Distinguished guests and supporters of Heartlands Festival, especially all our merchants’ and hawkers’ association representatives, partners, friends
1. Good afternoon, everyone. I’m glad to be able to join you today to mark the closing ceremony of Heartlands Festival 2023.
Value of our heartlands and success of the festival
2. Our heartland shops hold a very special place in the hearts of Singaporeans. Beyond providing important and affordable goods and services to residents, heartland shops inject vibrancy to our neighbourhood and town centres. They strengthen community bonding and are very much a part of our shared memories.
3. The Heartlands Festival, as we have seen in the video and also heard from Mr Yeo just now, was launched in 2021, amidst the many uncertainties for businesses brought about by COVID-19. The festival aims to revitalise our neighbourhood centres, bring back customer footfall, connect younger consumers with heartland businesses and showcase the benefits of digitalisation to heartland business owners. Since then, we have built on the success of the first edition to hold two more editions in 2022 and 2023.
4. The theme for 2023, “Celebrating the Community”, is about bringing together different generations, sustaining placemaking efforts and enhancing connections within the community. For this edition, we enlisted the support of our merchants’ and hawkers’ associations, who drove the Festival’s programming to boost the footfall to their respective neighbourhoods and town centres.
a. Over the past 2 months, 53 merchants’ and hawkers’ associations organised more than 120 activations across the island.
b. These ranged from trade fairs that bring novel and interesting products to their communities, to activities like music events, wellness programmes, craft workshops, and festive celebrations.
c. I’m sure there was something for everyone, with so many activities catering to a wide range of interests.
Paying tribute to our heartlands enterprises through ‘Heartland Stories’ videos
5. Aside from these programmes and activations, the Heartlands Festival pays tribute to our heartland enterprises. Many are continuously reinventing themselves to stay relevant and provide exciting shopping and dining options close to residents’ homes.
6. You may have seen some of these shops featured in the “Heartland Stories” videos that were playing on the screens earlier. For example, a family-run herbal dispensary, innovated by starting a website, adopting cashless payments, and rolling out vending machines across Singapore. In the process, they engaged HECS to provide feedback on how their daily operations could be improved, such as using LED lighting for their shelving to enhance the shopping experience for their customers. To the business owners who are in the audience today, thank you for being a fine example of combining modern innovation and tradition in our heartlands.
7. These heartwarming videos were produced by students from Singapore Polytechnic’s Media, Arts and Design School as part of a collaboration with Heartland Enterprise Centre Singapore (HECS). Through the project, the students had the opportunity to spend much time in our heartlands, interacting with and gaining new appreciation of our heartland shops and their business owners.
8. Some of the Heartland Stories videos are available for viewing on the HECS YouTube Channel, and more videos will be released this year.
Wider partnerships between HECS, FMAS and Government organisations
9. HECS and the Federation of Merchants’ Associations Singapore (FMAS) also partnered with Government organisations to put together a wider suite of programmes to cater to more diverse interests within the community.
a. For example, the National Heritage Board (NHB) brought two of its exhibitions, titled “Deliciously Singapore” and “Singapore Snapshots”, to Boon Lay Shopping Centre and J-Canopy, which are two designated sites for the festival. Residents who visited the exhibitions told us that they made their neighbourhoods and community spaces more vibrant.
b. The People’s Association (PA) and the Housing & Development Board (HDB) helped to publicise the festival through their respective networks of digital display panels in our HDB estates.
c. HDB also amplified festival events through their Retailers Link app to raise awareness of the festival and garner support from heartland enterprises in all HDB shopping centres.
Encouraging Merchants and Hawkers’ Associations to take the lead
10. As mentioned earlier, local merchants’ and hawkers’ associations played a big role in organising ground-up programmes at the 2023 edition of the Festival. Out of the more than 120 activations, some interesting projects included:
a. “The Jolly Fest” organised by Tampines West Merchants’ Association, featuring a flea market, live music performances and complimentary wellness classes;
b. Terrarium workshops for residents organised by Boon Lay Merchants' Association in collaboration with the Green Ambassadors Club from ITE West; and
c. A giant lighted dragon and eye-catching zodiac statues put up by Ang Mo Kio Merchants’ Association for residents to take photos with and usher in the Lunar New Year.
11. I would like to encourage all of you to continue to take the lead in enlivening our precincts through hyperlocal activations. In this way, our Heartlands Festival can take place throughout the year, all over Singapore.
Budget Meals Initiative
12. The public, too, can be mobilised to enliven our heartlands. There are plenty of hidden gems in our neighbourhoods that only the locals know about, including where to get the best-value meals.
13. We have now made it easier for shoppers and diners to recommend good meal deals to others by joining the Great Budget Meal Hunt, which was launched recently. This is a platform for Singaporeans to submit information on affordable meals in the heartlands. These public contributions complement the broader Budget Meal initiative, which we announced last year, to increase the availability of information about affordable cooked food and also to increase these budget options in our HDB estates. Under this initiative, HDB rental coffeeshops have to provide budget meals and drinks as a condition of tenancy renewal.
14. Currently, almost 130 of these rental coffee shops offering budget meals and drinks are listed on our website, BudgetMealGoWhere. Including contributions from the public, there are now close to 260 coffee shops listed on the site.
15. Now, let me say a few words in Mandarin.
各位中午好，感谢大家邀请我参加今天的庆祝活动与聚会。
对新加坡人而言，邻里商店扮演着特殊的角色。它们不仅是居民的情感联络站，也为居民提供物美价廉的商品和服务，是社区不可或缺的一部分。近年来，随着生活成本的上升，大家都非常关注生活费的问题。政府也在积极探索更多援助方案，以帮助商家和居民应对物价上涨。
去年，建屋局推出了经济餐饮计划，要求所有续租的咖啡店提供经济餐饮，并在维持租金稳定的基础上，进一步提供百分之五的租金折扣。此外，政府最近推出的‘经济餐大搜寻’ 计划（The Great Budget Meal Hunt），鼓励公众通过CrowdTaskSG平台推荐售卖平价餐饮的摊位，除了帮助别人节省生活开销，对保持具竞争力价格的商家也是一种实在的鼓励。我很高兴看到不少热心的用户参与这场“大搜寻”，丰富并推广各个邻里平价餐饮的信息，惠及更多国人。
今年的邻里节以“共祝邻里之心”为主题，我高兴全国共有53个商家和小贩协会积极协办，组织了超过120场活动，如贸易展览、音乐会、保健课程和手工艺坊等，大大丰富了我们的社区生活。
我非常感谢所有参与商家、新加坡邻里企业中心和新加坡全国商联总会，大家携手，为我们带来这么精彩难忘的邻里节！
Conclusion
16. Let me thank everyone who has worked so hard and contributed to Heartlands Festival 2023, and also convey my congratulations for the good work done. Let us continue to bring the community together, let’s keep up placemaking efforts and celebrate our heartland enterprises, so that they continue to be part of our cherished collective memories for many years to come. Thank you very much.