Committee 2021 Roundup: Transport, Logistics & Supply Chain

Extract from the British Chamber of Commerce Singapore Membership Directory 2021/22, available now to download

It goes without saying that 2021 has been dominated by Covid-19 and the impact that it has caused across the Transport, Logistics and Supply Chain sectors. These impacts are not homogenous, though, and it has been incredibly valuable to discuss with the committee members how these impacts have created both obvious and unexpected challenges and opportunities. For example, aviation and aerospace has remained extremely suppressed with recovery only starting to be discernable in a Singapore context from Q4, whereas increased consumer demand in many commodities has driven price escalation and opportunities in logistics (shipping and overland), tempered by a subsequent loss of synchronisation of the global shipping container pool. Our committee members are therefore well positioned to benefit from wide and varied perspectives on how we see the sector developing!  

Through the year the committee has continued to meet virtually and we have grown and diversified our membership, welcoming Nick Osbourne (Mott MacDonald), Asya Jamaludin (CMS Holborn), Chris Bishop (Ipsotek) and Simon Middlebrough (SAESL). In August our Chair, Simon Petch, returned to the UK August and Simon Middlebrough was elected as the new committee Chair from September. Clearly its helps to be called Simon in the TLSC space!

Highlights of the committee’s work through the year include Chris Jones’s ongoing focus on the impact of Covid-19 upon Seafarers, supporting the work in Sustainability in Future Cities – Food resilience through climate change, the Future Outlook of Supply Chains and planned podcasts on the future of Aviation. It is clear that sustainability and de-carbonization will continue to dominate much of the thinking and activity in our committee. We do see, however, an opportunity to better connect and engage with the underlying infrastructural elements of TLSC in addition to the more obvious “end user” sectors and that this can provide additional opportunities for UK based SMEs to make linkages into Singapore and the region.

Looking ahead to 2022, the committee is focused on the following areas:

• Providing forums and connections and access to key stakeholders for our members to learn, discover and contribute to our sectors in Singapore and the region.
• Collaborating effectively with the other committees on the strategic topics of sustainability, infrastructure and alignment to the broader Chamber objectives
• Delivering high quality output and events that are relevant and valuable to our members and that raise the profile of our sectors in both Singapore and the UK.  

TLSC is a broad canvas, with great breadth and expertise within the committee, and many links and interfaces to several of the other committees, such as Energy and Utilities and Sustainability. As we look into next year, I am really excited at the opportunities we have within TLSC, and indeed at how we can build even more effective connections across the Chamber and wider stakeholders. And even more exciting is that we shall be able to do this face to face sometime soon! Whether you are interested in joining the TLSC committee, or you would like to discuss ideas or connections from your own areas, please do get in touch!

Watch the Committee's playlist of BritCham webinars on YouTube:

Listen to the Committee's playlist of BritCham Singapore Podcast episodes on Spotify: