Opening Address by Minister Chee Hong Tat at the Mayors Forum of the World Cities Summit 2025 on 3 July 2025, 3.00pm
(GMT +2) @ Vienna City Hall, Vienna, Austria

Introduction

1.   Good afternoon, and a warm welcome to the 14th Mayors Forum of the World Cities Summit (WCS).

2.   We are honoured to have mayors and leaders from over 50 cities join us at this year’s forum in Vienna. It is my first time chairing the Mayors Forum, and I look forward to connecting with and learning from all of you.

3.   As the 2020 Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize Laureate, Vienna is known for its inclusive planning approach, and as a leader in tackling climate change. I thank Mayor Ludwig and our friends from Vienna for their warm hospitality.

Local Solutions, Global Impact

4.   The theme for this year’s Mayors Forum is “Liveable and Sustainable Cities: Local Solutions, Global Impact”. It is a timely reminder that while cities operate in different contexts, the challenges we face and opportunities we can seize are deeply intertwined.

5.   Over these two days, we will hear how cities approach urban challenges that are common across the globe, in ways that are tailored to their own context.

6.   We will also explore how cities can amplify the impact of our solutions through partnership and collaboration.

The Liveability Framework

7.   Let me begin by sharing Singapore’s experience. We are a small city-state with limited natural resources and no hinterland, so we have had to address issues like housing and water supply under very tight constraints. But these constraints have driven us to innovate.

8.   Singapore’s experience with urban transformation over the years, considered together with emerging challenges that cities face today, have been distilled into our Liveability Framework.

1. It is built around three interconnected outcomes: High Quality of Life, Competitive Economy, and Sustainable Environment.


2. While the framework was developed based on examples from Singapore, some aspects of the framework may resonate with other cities.


3. We hope that we can continue to share this Framework with all of you and other cities around the world, because we have common aspirations to enhance liveability and sustainability for all.

9.   Today, I am pleased to share our new Liveability Framework publication and website.

1. The publication titled ‘Building Liveable and Sustainable Cities: A Framework for the Future’ presents the refreshed Liveability Framework and case studies of leading cities worldwide, illustrating the global applicability of the framework.

10.   The Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC) has also published a special edition of their ‘Urban Solutions’ publication, titled ‘Harnessing Collaborative Ecosystems’.

1. The articles are from members of the City Network for the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize, which brings together alumni cities from the Prize to create and exchange knowledge on building liveable and sustainable cities.


2. The articles showcase how these cities can leverage collaborative ecosystems to generate local solutions that can have global impact.


3. Besides the printed editions at your tables, you can access these resources via the QR codes on the screen, and. I hope you will find these resources useful.

Singapore’s Local Solutions

11.   Allow me to elaborate on how Singapore puts the Liveability Framework into practice.

Delivering Affordable Housing

12.   Firstly, delivering affordable housing. This is a perennial challenge for cities, especially those with limited land and competing needs.

13.   In Singapore, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted our public housing supply. Housing demand increased, driven by changing social norms and concerns over construction delays. And these then drove up resale flat prices. Because more people couldn’t buy flats directly from the Housing Development Board (HDB), they went onto the resale market to buy resale flats. So how did we deal with this?

14.   First, we responded swiftly on the supply front. We accelerated the completion of projects that were delayed by COVID-19 and we ramped up the supply of new flats to meet demand. In total, we will launch more than 130,000 flats from 2021 to 2027.

15.   Second, we have kept public housing affordable.

1. We provide generous subsidies, especially for first-time homebuyers and those with lower-income.


2. Last year, we introduced a flat classification framework, where we categorise new flats into three new categories - Standard, Plus and Prime, based on their locational attributes such as proximity to the city centre and nearby amenities, and transport connectivity. So, if your flat is near to a MRT station, near the metro station – then you would expect the prices to be higher and therefore it would be classified not as Standard, but as Plus or Prime.


3. Flats with more favourable locational attributes – in order to keep the prices more affordable will receive additional government subsidies. If we don’t intervene with additional subsidies, because of their very attractive locations, the prices will be high. But to keep them affordable, we inject more government subsidies – but this cannot come without strings attached, because these are all taxpayers’ money that we are using to provide additional subsidies. Hence, in return these flats come with more conditions, such as a longer Minimum Occupation Period (MOP); for Standard Flats, the MOP is five years which means you need to stay in these flats for five years before you can sell it to the resale market. But for some of the flats that receive additional subsidies – the Plus and the Prime flats – they will come with a ten-year MOP. So you have to stay in these flats longer before you are able to sell them in the resale market. We also look at how to recover some of the subsidies that we provide at the point of sale. So you continue staying there, it is fine- you enjoy additional subsidies but if you intend to sell the flat after the five or ten year MOP, we will look at taking back some of the subsidies – and this again is to ensure fairness, between giving the individual some upside from asset appreciation versus using taxpayers’ dollar to ensure housing affordability. . This ensures parity while keeping flats affordable for Singaporeans over a range of income levels.

16.   CLC and Urban Innovation Vienna have documented how Singapore and Vienna are working very hard to meet housing needs through promoting affordability, how to make them inclusive, how to make the flats more responsive to climate change. More details on this publication will be shared after my speech.

Providing Reliable and Efficient Municipal Services

17.   Now, moving on to municipal services – which is another important topic. These are the day-to-day touchpoints such as estate cleanliness and maintenance of public infrastructure that can shape how people experience their city. So it is not just the initial building, but on a daily basis, their lived experiences will be shaped by the cleanliness of their estate and whether the facilities are maintained well.

1. So as cities grow more complex, we do need to balance between efficient municipal services, and also residents’ growing expectations of better and more responsive services.

18.   To address this, we established the Municipal Services Office (MSO) in 2014, to improve coordination and the way that we deliver municipal services across government agencies and town councils. Because sometimes the follow-ups require not just a single agency, but could involve multiple agencies. And if we leave to the resident to call different agencies, it could be quite confusing. So the Municipal Servies Office serves as a convenient as a one-stop office to help coordinate follow-ups in such cases.

19.   The community plays a role in upkeeping the environment and to promote considerate behaviours to address municipal issues. MSO will also run community activation initiatives to involve residents as community partners to improve their neighbourhoods.

20.   In 2021, MSO started the OneService Kakis network. For our friends who may not be familiar with the Malay language, “Kaki” means “leg” in Malay, which is also Singapore’s national language. But it is also a colloquial term for “friend”. MSO will fund and train these friends or “Kakis” to lead ground-up projects that can address municipal issues in their neighbourhoods. This close partnership has strengthened residents’ sense of belonging with their neighbourhoods, and encouraged greater collaboration with the government.

Re-thinking Urban Energy Transition

21.   Next, cities play a key role in navigating our global energy transition. Cities can be major emitters of carbon and pollutants, but they are also great places to drive innovation and to help support the transition towards sustainable energy solutions.

22.   As a city-state, Singapore is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. We are a resource-constrained city with limited renewable energy options, so this is actually quite a challenging task for us. I was explaining to our friends in Vienna that unlike Austria, where you are connected to the European grid, and you can tap that cleaner energy sources from the rest of Europe, we do not have the same in ASEAN – not yet, but we are working towards that ASEAN power grid. If that comes about, it will give us additional options to be able to help one another to achieve our collective hope of having a cleaner, zero emission, energy mix.

23.   A key focus is also about greening our buildings, because this account for around 20% of our national emissions, mainly due to cooling. If you think that today is hot in Vienna, it is almost like this every day in Singapore, plus humidity. So in our part of the world, cooling becomes an important part of what we need to keep our living environment comfortable. This then brings about an associated cost and carbon emission. So how we green our buildings becomes an important part of our overall plan.

1. We are guided by the Singapore Green Building Masterplan, where we want to enhance the energy efficiency and green 80% of our buildings by 2030 as a first step.


2. This again requires close collaboration between the Government and industry because we need to have the regulatory levers in place, the and incentive schemes in place, to get our industry partners to work closely with us to achieve our targets.
   
   Our goals may be ambitious but they are certainly important goals that we must strive for. They also involve difficult trade-offs and choices, but this is also where we must insist on this journey, because the cost of doing nothing will be even greater.

Managing Urban Water for Resilience

24.   Finally, urban water management. Singapore is a low-lying nation with limited water resources, so we must continue to develop forward-thinking climate resilient and water management solutions.

1. This is particularly important because climate change can bring about more intense rainfall and increased flood risks.

25.   A key effort is Long Island – this is an ambitious coastal development project in the south-eastern part of Singapore that will meet multiple national needs.

1. It will protect our low-lying East Coast against sea level rise and it will strengthen Singapore’s flood resilience, and enhance our water resilience with a new reservoir. So we create new land, but we also create a water body, a new reservoir.


2. It will also create space for future needs, because we can build something on the land – we can create land for housing, recreation and to support business activities and create jobs.

26.   Long Island is an example of resilience by design, turning our risk into opportunity by integrating water management with vibrant urban development.

Conclusion

27.   Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude my speech, as the Mayors Forum begins, I would like to encourage everyone to participate and contribute actively – please share your successes, your challenges, and your efforts to tackling the various challenges and issues, with all your fellow participants, because this is why we are here – to learn from one another.

28.   It is through knowledge exchange and collaboration that we can forge, that cities can accelerate and scale solutions. This is only possible with collective leadership, with collaboration, and capability building.

29.   With this, I would like to wish everyone an enriching Mayors Forum. Thank you very much.