Chet Singh, the quiet hand behind Penang’s industrial rise

Today, Bayan Baru is part of everyday life in Penang, its homes, businesses and commercial centres serving a community that grew alongside the state’s industrial expansion.

But half a century ago, Penang was in economic distress. Its traditional trading economy was in decline, thousands of young people were looking for work and the state was struggling to find a way forward.

The loss of its free port status in 1967 had dealt a heavy blow. By the end of the decade, unemployment had reached 16%, creating an urgent need for a new economic direction.

One of the men entrusted with finding it was Chet Singh, who died yesterday aged 90.

As the first general manager of the Penang Development Corporation (PDC), he spent two decades helping turn the late chief minister Dr Lim Chong Eu’s industrial ambitions into reality.

Lim provided the political leadership. Chet and his colleagues were responsible for putting the plan into action, building the machinery that would help transform Penang’s economy.

Established in 1969, PDC was tasked with developing labour-intensive industries and attracting foreign investment to a state that could no longer rely on its traditional sources of trade.

Chet took charge as general manager in 1971, aged just 35. He was not a businessman but an administrator, having graduated in economics and history from the University of Malaya in Singapore before joining the ministry of defence in 1960. He became Penang’s state financial officer in 1967.

The challenge was considerable. Penang had to persuade international companies that it could provide the land, workforce and infrastructure needed to support manufacturing on a scale the state had never experienced.

In a 2024 interview with The Edge, Chet recalled that about 50,000 young people were looking for jobs in those early years.

“There was a high rate of unemployment, and E&E jobs would create the necessary jobs in the quickest time,” he said, referring to electrical and electronics manufacturing.

The strategy centred on export-oriented industries and free trade zones, where foreign companies could establish production facilities.

But securing investment was not simply a matter of offering land. PDC had to answer technical questions, facilitate operations and convince investors that Penang could support their businesses over the long term.

Chet’s account of National Semiconductor’s arrival offers a glimpse of how he approached the challenge.

The American company was among the first multinational investors to show interest in Penang. When its representatives arrived with a lengthy technical questionnaire, Chet and the PDC secretary could not answer all the questions immediately.

Rather than bluff their way through, he asked for a day to obtain the information.

He contacted people who could help and returned with the completed questionnaire on Monday afternoon.

The company was impressed and moved into Penang. AMD and Hewlett-Packard followed, while Intel later chose the state for its first manufacturing plant outside the United States.

Those early investments helped establish Penang as an electronics manufacturing centre and connected it to global supply chains.

Much of the work involved ensuring that industrial development could keep pace with investor needs. PDC had to prepare sites and make sure roads, water and electricity were available.

As Chet told The Edge, attracting investors was one thing; ensuring the necessary infrastructure was in place was another.

The corporation’s responsibilities also extended beyond the factory gates. During his tenure, PDC undertook the development of several townships, including Bayan Baru, as industrial growth brought more workers and families to the island.

By the time Chet retired in 1991, the scale of the transformation was evident.

A 2019 profile by Perdana.org recorded that the number of companies in PDC’s industrial parks had grown from about 200 in 1976 to 300 in 1987 and 500 in 1990. Employment in the parks had reached approximately 115,000.

For thousands of families, these figures represented more than economic growth. They meant jobs for school-leavers, opportunities to acquire new skills and the prospect of building a livelihood without leaving Penang.

Yet Chet was reluctant to take too much credit for what had happened.

He often played down the suggestion that he and Lim had possessed extraordinary foresight.

“People like me and Chong Eu weren’t as far-sighted as many people thought. All we knew was that there were 50,000 youngsters looking for jobs,” he said.

It was a candid assessment from a man who had spent 20 years at the centre of the state’s industrial transformation.

The immediate problem, as he saw it, was unemployment. The scale of what Penang would eventually become was not something he claimed to have foreseen.

Chet largely kept out of the public eye after retiring, although he returned to serve in a different capacity in 2010, when the Penang government appointed him to a task force to examine ways of improving PDC’s performance.

He remained connected to the corporation’s work. In July, he visited InvestPenang with his wife, daughter and Penang Skills Development Centre chief executive Hari Narayanan. Staff briefed him on the state’s changing industrial landscape and celebrated his 90th birthday.

The visit brought Chet back to an institution he had helped build, though the industrial landscape around him had changed beyond recognition since his early days as an administrator.

“A legend”

Nazir Razak, son of former prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein, paid tribute to Chet, calling him one of the founding fathers of the “Silicon Valley of the East” and saying Penang owed him a great debt of gratitude.

On Tuesday, Nazir posted a photograph of Chet on Instagram, explaining that it had been taken the previous night as the former PDC general manager watched a programme about his father. Chet featured prominently in the programme, and Nazir described him as a legend.

Chet had often acknowledged the role Razak played in Penang’s recovery from the unemployment crisis of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

As prime minister, Razak backed the creation of the state’s free trade zone, despite reservations within the federal government that it could amount to an attempt to restore Penang’s former free port status by another route.

He saw the opportunity to bring foreign manufacturers into the state and used his authority as chairman of the national operations council to push the proposal through.

His backing also carried political significance: Penang was then governed by the opposition, but Razak did not allow that to stand in the way of a plan he believed could revive its economy.

That support helped clear the way for the industrial programme that Lim’s administration and PDC would go on to develop.

Penang’s economy has moved far beyond the early factories and assembly lines. But the foundations were laid when the state faced an economic crisis and thousands of young people needed work.

Chet’s contribution was made largely outside the political spotlight. He helped build an institution, worked to win the confidence of international investors and ensured that the practical requirements of industrial growth were addressed.

Today, the factories and townships that grew out of that effort are part of Penang’s everyday landscape. For generations who have known no other Penang, it may be difficult to imagine how uncertain the future once looked.

His funeral cortege will leave his residence at 24 Changkat Minden, Jalan 5, Minden Heights, at 2.15pm today for the Batu Gantung Crematorium, where the cremation will take place at 3pm.

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