About Us

CEO Message

CEO/Managing Director – Dr Alex Tan Pang Kee

Dr Alex Tan founded Matex in September 1989 and was appointed as the Managing Director since early 1990. Dr Tan has more than 40 years of related experience and is instrumental in the development of the Company since its inception as a Singapore home grown enterprise. He is in charge of formulating corporate strategies and management of growth and development. He is also involved in developing new products and identifying new markets for the Group. Dr Tan obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of London and obtained an his honorary Ph.D in business administration from the Honolulu University, Hawaii, USA, in 2003. Between 1967 and 1989, Dr Tan was the regional technical manager of the Sandoz Division of F.E. Zuellig (Trading) Pte Ltd. (1976 to 1988), technical supervisor of Guthrie (M.S.) Pte Ltd. (1973 to 1975) and a chemical analyst in the Malaysia Chemistry Department (1967 to 1972).

To business operation, Dr Tan has his own insight, insisting people-oriented, science-leading and constant innovation. To reach a steady and sustainable growth path, one must

Have a clear vision that has long lasting unique and prominent value propositions, geared with a strong determination to deliver solid performance as this will underpin the strategies, decisions chosen and taken.
Continue to discover and build on your strengths, be it a strong foundation, teamwork, prudent and sound capital management and investing
Nurture your assets especially your team to bring out the best of each, so they can stay loyal and committed to enhance value
Stay true to your values as they guide your core and define your culture and shape personalities and decision making processes
Timely execute strategies with a team having the right experience, knowledge to derive the best returns.

Guided by these philosophy, Matex is growing continuously and has expanded to a world wide business, including China, Southeast Asia, south Asia, Europe and dozens of countries and regions of Africa.

After development of more than 20 years, from the beginning of dyes and auxiliaries, product categories have extended many folds to fluorescent whitening agent, anti-bacterial agents, anti-enzyme agents, health care products, perfume microcapsules, as well as lab-used color measuring instrument and automatic titration system. Matex won many awards in Singapore and China and was reported in many media. “To be develop Matex as a global sustainable brand with deep Asian cultural roots and values”, is a persistent pursuit of Dr Tan, which drives the group to strive consistently to achieve Matex’s goal.

To Our Stakeholders:

2014: Celebrating Matex 25th Year!

A very big thank you to all for your support, trust and confidence. Sincere appreciation to our staff around the world for your continued dedicated contributions. Read More

As a result, Matex continues to be profitable. This enables us to deliver and strive harder for credible, balanced and sustainable business growth.

2014 marked another historical milestone for the group as we registered a new high in the Group’s revenue turnover and with it turning 25 years old as it continues to be recognized amongst Singapore Top 1000 Companies. It is also the group’s first decade as a public listed entity on the mainboard of the Singapore Exchange. With that we recalibrated our vision, mission, values and brand promise.

On 15th July 2014, we were much honoured and priviledged to have Singapore’s Minister of State for Trade and Industry Mr Teo Ser Luck, visiting the new Matex Innovation Centre in Singapore. In an official statement, he confirmed the company's innovative approach was something that SMEs could learn from in order to transform their business and stay globally competitive.

Some other colourful highlights throughout the year included:

Our pledge to the commitment for Fair Employment Practises under the framework of TAFEP (Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment Practises),
Being invited to speak at InnovFest 2014 Asian Innovations Going Global on Industry Involvement in Research: "How to get it RIGHT!" & TechInnovation 2014 sharing our experience and interacting with others about “How Open Innovation works for SMEs.”
For the 4th year running, we helped the SDC (Society of Dyers and Colourists) organize and produce a country winner in Singapore by working closely with Singapore’s local Textile and Fashion Schools along with JCC (Japan Creative Center) our partner’s help. Mr Chan Jian Hong (Temasek Polytechnic) represented Singapore at the Grand Final of SDC’s International Design Competition in Huizhou China. The SDC is the world’s leading independent, educational charity dedicated to advancing the science and technology of colour worldwide. Established in 1884, they have been representing their members and industry for over 125 years. The SDC is a professional, chartered society. Their mission is to communicate the science of colour in a changing world.
Matex participates in The Color Run Singapore- The Happiest 5K On The Planet! 30th August 2014.
The Color Run is a global event to promote healthiness and happiness by bringing the community together to participate in the “Happiest 5k on the Planet”. It also focuses on giving back. The Singapore side will be donating $1 from race entry to Singapore Disability Sports Council.

These key events and activities further encourages the group's efforts in its growing success and its passion to continue to embrace innovation, leading best practises and ideas, to differentiate and make meaningful contributions and differences.

Matex International Limited's unwaveringly reaffirms its support of the Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact in the areas of Human Rights, Labour, Environment and Anti-Corruption.

In our annual Communication on Progress, we will further describe our actions to continually improve the integration of the Global Compact and its principles into our business strategy, culture and daily operations. We also commit to share this information with our stakeholders using our primary channels of communication, wherever possible.

The measures the Group has continue to develop on include, inter alia:

Reinforcing group-wide initiatives that focused on continuous sales improvements and value enhancements.

A continuous and systematic effort to increase revenue and profitability through cost-cutting, cash-generating and efficiency improvement measures.

Further integration of a culture of continuous improvement into all our business units and activities based on operational, environmental, innovation and people excellence.

The enhanced capacities at our plants further improved our competitive edge. The increased market share was a result of our strategy to continue producing consistent quality, ecologically friendly and better products at competitive prices to achieve a ‘win-win’ strategic partnership with our esteemed customers. This helped them to optimize their productivity and profitability and in turn, ours.

Future Outlook

The economic outlook for the region and the world remains contrasting. The rising cost of doing business, especially staff and land costs, is also a challenge. Thus 2015 will continue to be another year of challenges for the industry we serve - although there is cautious optimism for an improved business environment. Issues such as compliance, sustainability and product safety will continue to feature prominently. Trade talks to expand duty-free opportunities such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could yield further opportunities in the many countries we are already in and have strategically chosen to do business with.

Opportunities that we could focus on this year include developing strategic relationships to improve flexibility across the supply chain; focusing on adding value through design, innovation and branding to protect margins; and the better use of technologies to service our customers.

The Group will thus need to remain nimble enough to respond to changing buying patterns, develop strong partnerships across the supply chain, and focus on a sourcing portfolio that balances costs and risks.

The Group will continue to diversify into complementary areas of the clean colour science technology business. It will continue its efforts to improve sales performance outside PRC market in its global long-term vision and efforts to internationalize the Matex^® and Megafix^® brand, further optimizing its manufacturing facilities.

Sincere appreciation

On behalf of the Board, we wish once again to extend our deepest gratitude and heartfelt thanks to all our valued customers, clients, business partners, associates, suppliers and shareholders, for your unwavering trust, support and confidence.

People continue to be the greatest assets of the Group. To our fellow board members, management and all staff around the world, we say a very big thank you for your loyalty, contributions, dedication, hard work and high level of commitment.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the Group continues to be encouraged by its current direction and future prospect, and is ready for further developments and new opportunities in the year ahead.

Wishing one and all a great new year ahead with many good tidings!

Yours sincerely,
Dr Alex Tan Pang Kee
CEO/Managing Director