Translated version of the original speech in Mandarin:

Honourable Senior Minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong,

Deputy Prime Minister & Minister for Trade and Industry Mr Gan Kim Yong,

Minister for Education Mr Chan Chun Sing,

Minister for Culture, Community and Youth and Second Minister for Law Mr Edwin Tong,

Senior Ministers of State,

Ministers of State,

Mayors,

Senior Parliamentary Secretaries,

Members of Parliament,

Heads of Diplomatic Missions and government officials,

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre Founding Chairman and Honorary President of the Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations Mr Chua Thian Poh,

President of Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations Mr Thomas Chua,

Council members of SFCCA,

Board Directors of SCCC,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning to all of you. Today is the third day of Chinese New Year, and on behalf of SCCC and SFCCA, I would like to welcome our Guest-of-Honour Senior Minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong and all our distinguished guests, and to thank everyone for taking time to be with us at SCCC today.

2024 has been a year marked by significant milestones and achievements for SCCC.

SCCC attracted over 418,653 visitors to the centre and our community engagement efforts reached out to 733,486 members of the public.

Our signature programmes continued to do well. Our Mid-Autumn Family FUN 2024 attracted a record crowd of 42,217 over the weekend of 6 to 8 September and our SING.浪2024 concert was sold-out for the first time. Our monthly programmes such as “Happy Singalong” continue to sell-out months in advance and our new programme “Life Lessons with Ah Gong and Ah Ma” sessions were over-subscribed by 200%.

2024 also marks a year of new partnerships as we collaborated with Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall for Chinese New Year Family FUN 2024 and “Expressions of Devotion: The Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Singapore” special exhibition. After two years of successful collaboration in 2024 and 2025, we signed a three-year agreement with Land Transport Authority from 2026 to 2028 for its “CNY Themed Trains, Stations and Buses” initiative to bring festive cheer to commuters during the CNY period.

In 2024, we welcomed our new CEO, Mr Alvin Tan, and together with our Board of Directors and the SCCC management team, we charted out the four new strategic priorities for SCCC for the next three years (2025 to 2027) and laid out the various initiatives we need to develop and implement to bring SCCC to new and greater heights.

In 2024, SCCC’s Research Unit successfully launched Culturepaedia, an online repository on Singapore Chinese culture. This is a significant milestone in our efforts to document, showcase and promote Chinese culture and language. To date, Culturepaedia has close to 180 articles and has attracted more than 200,000 page views. SCCC will commission more articles to grow Culturepaedia in 2025.

SCCC also signed two agreements with two new partners: first, with National Arts Council to co-organise the first ever Chinese Opera Festival this year to support and showcase local Chinese opera groups and cultivate appreciation for the traditional art form amongst Singaporeans; and second, with Arts House Limited for Singapore Writers Festival 2024 to organise programmes to enhance public awareness and appreciation of local Chinese writers and literary works.

SCCC also partnered Project Litup!, a group comprising students from Nanyang Girls’ High School, to offer Chinese language appreciation classes through topics of interest including classic Chinese novels, music instruments and even Chinese chess. We will continue to work with Project Litup! to offer more such classes this year.

In conclusion, the achievements and milestones which I have briefly shared would not have been possible without the support of our stakeholders and partners 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 and I would like to wish everyone prosperity and abundance in the Year of the Snake.

Thank you everyone.