Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry, Mr Gan Kim Yong,
Ministers,
Ministers of State,
Mayors,
Senior Parliamentary Secretaries,
Members of Parliament,
Heads of Diplomatic Missions and government officials,
Dr Chua Thian Poh, Founding Chairman, SCCC,
Mr Thomas Chua, President, Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations,
Council members of SFCCA,
Board Directors of SCCC,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today is the third day of Chinese New Year, and 2026 marks the 12th year SCCC is co-organising Spring Reception with SFCCA.
On behalf of SCCC and SFCCA, I would like to welcome our Guest-of-Honour DPM Gan Kim Yong and all our distinguished guests, and to thank everyone for taking time to be with us at SCCC today.
In my Spring Reception speech last year, I mentioned that the SCCC Board of Directors and management set out new strategic priorities to guide us from 2025 to 2027. I am glad to report that we are heading in the right direction.
2025 has been a year crowned by remarkable achievements for SCCC. SCCC’s visitorship has more than doubled from close to 420,000 visitors in 2024 to over 950,000 visitors in 2025 – the highest ever recorded since our opening in 2017. Our community outreach efforts have quadrupled from almost 830,000 to over 4 million; our in-depth participation figures also increased from near 35,000 to over 55,000 programme participants; and the number of students who participated in our onsite and offsite programmes more than doubled from 13,000 in 2024 to 28,000 in 2025. I would like to thank my fellow Board of Directors and the SCCC team under the leadership of our CEO Alvin Tan for their hard work.
2025 was also a year of exciting new launches for SCCC. SCCC launched our first ever Chinese Opera Festival in June 2025 in partnership with the National Arts Council. During the festival, we presented five shows by five different Chinese opera troupes, attracted close to 2,000 participants and sold-out three out of five shows. We also launched Culture on Wheels comprising travelling trunks packed with education resources for educators and Primary school students, and our trunks have travelled to 18 MOE schools and 2 international schools, reaching out to more than 16,000 students and they are fully booked by schools until March 2026.
2025 also marks a year of expanded partnerships. We increased our number of partners by more than 50%, and renewed our venue partnerships agreement with eight visual arts groups including Singapore Art Society, and The Singapore Watercolour Society.
We also expanded on our international partnerships as we collaborated with the French Embassy of Singapore for our CITY SingaPOP Artspace exhibition, featuring digital artworks by French visual designer inspired by Chinese landmarks and other iconic buildings in Singapore – commemorate 60 years of diplomatic relations between Singapore and France, and with the High Commission of Malaysia and the Royal Thai Embassy Singapore to co-present Brewing Nostalgia: Kopitiams in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand to commemorate the establishment of 60 years of diplomatic relations between Singapore and Malaysia, as well as Singapore and Thailand.
To cap off an eventful year, we organised our first Winter Solstice Festival in December 2025 which attracted 190 participants from over 18 community organisations and set two Singapore Book of Records for “Most Varieties of Tangyuan Made at an Event” and “Largest SG60 Logo Made from Bowls of Tangyuan”.
Looking ahead, 2026 looks to be another exciting year for SCCC as we continue to undergo a process of renewal. In October, we will be refreshing our Permanent Exhibition which was opened by then-Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in 2020. As part of the refresh, we will update the contents of our Permanent Exhibition and enhance the way its contents are presented to ensure that it remains engaging, relevant and representative of Singapore’s evolving Chinese culture.
While our Permanent Exhibition is undergoing its refresh, we will be launching our special exhibition which celebrates local Chinese television from the 1980s to early 2000s, and we will continue to organise our signature festivals and programmes here at SCCC. In addition, we will ramping up our outreach efforts which will include a travelling exhibition based on the content of our Permanent Exhibition and another travelling exhibition showcasing Singapore’s zichar culture.
The refresh of SCCC’s Permanent Exhibition will be completed in 2027 and we target to re-open our Permanent Exhibition in the last quarter of 2027, to coincide with a significant SCCC milestone – our 10th anniversary. 2027 marks a coming of age for SCCC and SCCC will celebrate this important milestone not just with more and better programmes at SCCC, we intend to bring 10 arts and culture performances by local Chinese arts and culture groups to different parts of Singapore as our gift back to Singaporeans for their support all these years.
The past achievements and milestones which I have briefly shared as well as our upcoming projects in 2026 and 2027 would not have been possible without the support of our stakeholders and partners, like many of you here today, through the years. On behalf of SCCC, I would like to convey our heartfelt gratitude to them for strengthening and amplifying our efforts to promote and enrich Singapore Chinese culture.
In conclusion, I would like to thank everyone for joining us at today’s Spring Reception and wish everyone prosperity and abundance in the Year of the Horse!
