Subscribe now

"Keep Low Key," Said the Container Cartel

Teo Siong Seng, 71, chairman of the Singapore Business Federation and a board member of Enterprise Singapore, was indicted by the US Department of Justice in January after getting fingered as part of a global conspiracy that allegedly doubled the price of dry shipping containers between 2019 and 2021, pushing four manufacturers' profits up almost a hundredfold. Court documents, unsealed May 19, show that Teo was briefed on plans to artificially restrict container production before an agreement was signed by six companies in March 2020. The deal included output quotas, video surveillance of factory floors, and penalties for overproduction. After the November 2019 meeting in Shenzhen, Teo allegedly told co-conspirators "we also need to keep low key." He has taken leave from SBF, the Singapore Economic Resilience Taskforce, and Enterprise Singapore. Teo's parent company, Pacific International Lines, got a $600 million rescue from Temasek unit Heliconia Capital in 2021, during the same period that the cartel's profits were spinning up.

Read more: Business Times (container price rise), Business Times (Teo background), Gcaptain (Vick Ma arrest), Business Times (Mark Lee succession)

OpenAI Plants Its Flag as Beijing Sends Recruiters

OpenAI opened its first Applied AI Lab outside the United States in Singapore this week, backed by a S$300 million ($227 million) commitment and plans to hire more than 200 forward-deployed engineers over the next few years. The lab will work with government agencies on public services, finance, healthcare and digital infrastructure. The government also renewed its National AI Strategy and launched a finance talent pipeline in collaboration with DBS, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and 17 others to offer more than 1,000 internships and traineeships over the next year. While this is happening, Huawei has been busy bussing NTU PhD students to its Buona Vista research centre for "informal networking," and Chinese tech firms are dangling up to five million yuan a year for top AI candidates.

Read more: Straits Times (Chinese salary), Business Times (OpenAI MOU signatories), Business Times (NAIS 10 priorities), Business Times (SME program rollout), Deepmind Google (DeepMind health R&D)

Jakarta Stumbles, Singapore Inherits the Crown

The Singapore bourse (SGX) has overtaken Jakarta as Southeast Asia's biggest stock market, with ~$644 billion of market cap vs IDX's $618 billion (as of May 19). The Jakarta Composite has dropped more than a quarter year to date, the rupiah found a record low of 17,668 to the dollar on May 18, and MSCI has temporarily put a pause on index treatment for Indonesian stocks because of concerns about free-float levels, opaque ownership, and market accessibility. An $80 billion rout in January got the slide underway, and the index provider is also saying a possible downgrade from growing to frontier status might be in the cards. Thailand is siting in third spot with a $576 billion market cap.

Read more: Business Times

Advertisement:

Simba's Spectrum Slip-Up Kills M1 Deal

Tuas Ltd's $1.1 billion bid for M1 collapsed on Friday after several deal conditions were missed, days after IMDA suspended its regulatory review over findings that Simba, Tuas's Singapore unit, may have used radio frequency bands that it was never assigned in order to provide mobile services. Keppel (which still owns83.9% of M1), is putting a 90-day "Plan B" into play in order to try and rightsize the telco through network cost cuts, AI automation, and product rationalization. StarHub is now the likeliest next suitor.

Read more: Yahoo Finance (Singtel clarity bid), Yahoo Finance (ASX:TUA identity)

Beijing Edges Washington on Singapore Investment Ledger

China became the largest source of fixed-asset investment commitments in 2025, beating out the US for the first time. Speaking in Shanghai, Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Chinese companies are using the city-state as a manufacturing site, regional hub, or international entity separate from their domestic business. He also toured a humanoid robot incubator in Shanghai and pushed on AI adoption, saying that avoiding a "jobs apocalypse" will require companies big and small to use the technology at scale. The New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, connecting western China to Singapore and Southeast Asia since 2017, and the incoming Pinglu Canal, which will route cargo ships from south-western China to the sea on a path near Vietnam, got warm words from reps of both countries.

Read more: Business Times (AI, US-China), Business Times (Pinglu Canal, trade)

Bill Winters Discovers What "Lower-Value" Humans Think of Him

Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters told an investor briefing in Hong Kong on May 18 that the bank's plan to cut nearly 8,000 jobs by 2030 was "not cost-cutting" but "replacing in some cases “lower-value human capital” (wow) with the financial capital and the investment capital we are putting in." Asia, where StanChart earns most of its profits, did not take this well. Former Singapore president Halimah Yacob said the language was "disturbing.” One Hong Kong commenter on a Winters LinkedIn post promised to never to bank with Standard Chartered again. By Wednesday, Winters had sent around an internal memo insisting his words had been "reduced to simple headlines or a quote out of context," and tried to reassure staff that "the future of Standard Chartered depends on the talent, judgement, relationships, and commitment of you, our colleagues." , the bank says it will keep hiring relationship managers in Singapore. Temasek Holdings, the bank's largest shareholder, declined to comment.

Read more: The Independent Singapore

The Chairman Never Called

A Singapore CEO forked over US$36.3 million (S$46.5 million) after scammers impersonated his company chairman on a WhatsApp call, telling him to fund a fake acquisition. Between April 13 and 17, the money went into two OCBC accounts, US$27.1 million from a Luxembourg subsidiary and US$9.7 million from the Singapore entity, before the CEO finally thought to make a phone call to the real chairman. The Anti-Scam Centre froze the US$9.7 million that was still parked locally, but US$26.5 million had already made its way to Hong Kong, where police were able to seize more than US$11 million worth of cash and cryptocurrency.

Read more: Cryptoadventure

Truck License More Than a Condo Deposit

Category C COE premiums hit a record S$92,223 ($68,000) last week, the seventh straight increase since February's first round of bidding at S$74,801. The new number eclipses the S$91,101 mark set in March 2023. Two forces are coming into play together. Diesel has had a run from S$2 to as nearly S$4.50 a litre at the same time that new incentives under the Heavy Vehicle Zero Tailpipe Emissions Scheme are up to S$40,000 per electric heavy vehicle and up to S$30,000 per charger. Registrations of electric heavy vehicles were up tenfold y-o-y in Jan/ Feb, and the LTA says e-bus and electric heavy goods vehicle registrations have been climbing since January.

Read more: Business Times (Roland Berger), Business Times (Category A contrast)

Bloomberg Bill Comes Due

Senior counsel Davinder Singh told the High Court on Friday that Bloomberg's malice was "blatantly obvious," pointing to the outlet's decision to drop the paywall on its Singapore mansion secrecy story while publicly standing by the reporting, even after complying with a government takedown order under a fake news law. Singh wants damages higher than the S$574,000 ($448,469) already ordered against The Online Citizen editor Terry Xu over a related article about ministers K. Shanmugam and Tan See Leng.

Read more: South China Morning Post

First, Do No Meltdown

PM Lawrence Wong announced Tuesday that Singapore will undertake an IAEA Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review next year, joining Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand, all of which have already completed the same Phase 1 assessment. The review covers issues including waste management, emergency planning, and financing. The IAEA normally puts out the findings after a week-long plenary interview with its experts. Wong was careful to say that the review is not a deployment decision. If it ever gets that far, two more review phases will need to happen first, and the full infrastructure build-out would be expected to take as much as a further 15 years.

Read more: Business Times

FM’s Three-Capital Pyongyang Detour

Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan showed up in Pyongyang this week as part of a five-day swing through China, North Korea, and South Korea. It’s the fourth time a Singaporean political office holder has made the trip since diplomatic ties were opened in 1975. His last visit was June 2018, right before the Trump-Kim summit. George Yeo was the first to go in 2008, and then-Senior Parliamentary Secretary Tan Wu Meng rounded out the short list at the North's 70th founding anniversary in 2018.

Read more: AsiaOne

Tanglin Club Pickleball Putsch

Chong Zhi Cheng and his "Team TC2026" slate unseated the incumbent committee at Tanglin Club's AGM on May 21, with Chong delivering a beating to outgoing president Kevin Gin with 341 votes to 310. The revolt turned on S$12 million ($9.3 million) in capital projects that members say went ahead without proper consultation. The bill was broken down into S$7 million ($5.4 million) for Green Mark certification and S$5 million ($3.9 million) for new pickleball courts. The legendary club, founded in 1865 and home to more than 4,000 members from 70 countries, doesn't often air its laundry publicly, and true to form its spokesperson declined to comment on "individual nominations, election matters or internal deliberations."

Read more: Business Times

Ammonia Will Eventually Get a Berth

Singapore's MPA has given ITOCHU subsidiary ZETA Bunkering the port's first authorization for ship-to-ship ammonia bunkering trials for up to two years. The fueling won't start until late next year, when ITOCHU's newbuild 5,000 cbm ammonia bunker vessel, (currently getting built at Japan's Sasaki works) begins supplying dual-fuel Capesize bulkers owned by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and Belgium's CMB.TECH. The last ammonia test in Singapore used a single converted offshore support vessel, the Fortescue, in early 2024.

Read more: Marineinsight (authorization date), Maritime Executive (CMB.TECH joint venture)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Strategy Review Adds an Eighth Pillar for a Cracked World

The Economic Strategy Review's final recommendations (32 of ‘em) were delivered on May 13 with a section that didn't exist in the January midterm. The new eighth focus area, “building economic resilience,” refers to energy supply and supply chain risks. When the midterm was presented, MTI had recently upgraded its 2026 growth forecast to 2-4 percent and the Strait of Hormuz was open. Now the Homefront Crisis Ministerial Committee is coordinating the government's response, and Singapore's Q1 economy has become smaller by a third of a percent quarter-on-quarter. The rest of the report mostly elaborates on January's ideas. It returns to the AI solutions hub, workforce agility, how to get more cutting-edge investment, and taking "bold bets" (many of which will never be expected to pay off).

Read more: Business Times (Hormuz vulnerability), Business Times (stakeholder engagement), Business Times (physical AI)

SIA's India Bet Keeps Getting More Expensive

Singapore Airlines saw record revenue of S$20.5 billion ($16.1 billion) for the year ended March 31, then watched net profit fall 57.4% to S$1.18 billion ($927 million) as Air India reported a S$3.56 billion ($2.8 billion) loss, of which SIA absorbed S$945 million ($743 million). The cascade at the Indian carrier is a stress test nobody wanted. Pakistan shut its airspace to Indian airlines in April 2025, the AI171 crash in Gujarat killed 260 people, and the Iran war has since forced Air India to cancel nearly a third of its peak-summer international flights. Campbell Wilson, the longtime SIA executive installed as Air India's CEO, resigned in April, though he will stay on until the board finds a successor. KPMG wrote (politely) of "indicators of impairment" on the investment but stopped short of a write-down. CEO Goh Choon Phong said its a "long game" with "no shortcut," and then declined to say whether SIA will inject more cash beyond the S$880 million already committed, leaving that conversation for "fellow shareholders." Air India is reportedly looking for at least 100 billion rupees (S$1.47 billion) in renewed support from SIA and Tata.

Read more: CNBC (SIA stake breakdown), Ts2 Tech (jet fuel), Fortune (passenger volume), Travel and Tour World (rupee loss figure)

SGX Lands a Whale With Beijing's Fingerprints

DayOne, the data center business spun out of Shanghai's GDS Holdings, is planning a dual listing on both the SGX and Nasdaq that would raise $5 billion and value the company at around $20 billion. That would make it one of the biggest SGX listings in a decade. Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan are advising. The company had originally lined up a New York-only IPO before SGX officials talked it into a co-listing. The exchange had to go recruiting for its own marquee deal. DayOne rebranded from GDS International in January 2025 and runs hyperscale campuses in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, and Finland. Under the SGX-Nasdaq framework announced last year, companies valued at more than S$2 billion ($1.5 billion) can file a single set of paperwork to list on both bourses, with at least 15 percent of the IPO value on SGX.

Read more: Financial Times (SGX dual-listing rules), Ilsole24ore (Malaysia expansion), Manila Times (Series C backers), Cryptobriefing (GDS retained stake)

Advertisement:

1MDB's Ghost Comes for the Banks

The High Court approved winding-up orders for four BVI-registered entities tied to the 1MDB scandal on May 15, clearing Kroll liquidators Angela Barkhouse and Toni Shukla to file claims against Standard Chartered and BSI Bank's Singapore operations. The entities, Alsen Chance Holdings, Brightstone Jewellery, Brazen Sky and Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners, were placed into liquidation in the BVI between December 2021 and March 2024. The liquidation move is a workaround. An earlier ruling found that Singapore's Model Law on cross-border insolvency blocked foreign representatives from bringing avoidance claims on transactions that happened before its 2020 introduction, so the liquidators got local winding-up orders to pursue the pre-2020 deals instead. In March, Justice Aidan Xu rejected both banks' efforts to intervene, deciding they had no standing as contingent creditors based on the possibility of future costs orders.

Read more: Business Times

Lee Returns to Guangxi After a Decade

Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong heads to Guangxi and Shanghai on Monday for a five-day trip, his first time back in Guangxi since 2014. The delegation includes officials from the digital development and manpower ministries. Shanghai stops are planned at companies working on AI and other tech. Bilateral trade was S$162.9 billion ($124 billion) in 2025, 11.7 percent of Singapore's global merchandise trade, and the city-state has been China's largest foreign investor by inflows since 2013. Lee's visit comes in the wake of PM Lawrence Wong's March trip to Hainan for the Bo'ao Forum.

Read more: AsiaOne (Zhangjiang AI island), Business Times (JPMorgan summit)

Fake PM, Real Money

A deepfake Zoom call impersonating PM Lawrence Wong, President Tharman, Canada's foreign minister, and the senior diplomatic adviser to the UAE president cost a victim S$4.9 million ($3.8 million). The con opened with a WhatsApp from someone posing as the secretary to the cabinet, inviting the target to an urgent meeting with Wong. The Zoom room was populated with AI-generated stand-ins for BlackRock and Dubai International Financial Centre representatives, and the pitch involved funding tied to the Strait of Hormuz. Police have since been able to get footage of the call, but this is a remarkable tale of how much things have changed lately in the world of fraud.

Read more: South China Morning Post

Loan Sharks Discover the Gig Economy

Johor-based loan shark syndicates found a workaround for Singapore's CCTV problem. They recruit Malaysian delivery riders on Telegram, pay them up to S$100 ($77) a job, and let the gig economy do the harassment. Malaysian and Singapore police arrested 35 people in an operation announced on May 15, including riders and mule account holders, after a New Straits Times report exposed the thing. The method of choice was deliveries of pork products to Muslim borrowers, packaged as "surprise gifts" so riders had plausible deniability about the contents. Several were held after recipients made police reports.

Read more: CNA

MAS Lets Grown-Ups Buy Their Own Derivatives

MAS confirmed rules on May 15 that drop the mandatory financial advice requirement before most retail investors can buy complex products like structured notes, derivatives, and investment-linked policies. The hand-holding will have to remain for any investors that meet two of three criteria: investors aged 62 or older, not proficient in English, or educated below O or N-level. Everyone else can get pre-transaction alerts reminding them to read the documents, AND a nudge toward a learning module if want to better understand the waters they are swimming in.

Read more: Business Times

H&M Packs Up Marina Bay for KL

H&M has moved its Southeast Asian headquarters from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, with about 80 of 256 regional roles cut in the process. The Swedish retailer announced the move to staff on May 11. Six outlets are still open in Singapore, where H&M says it stays "an important market" with a "long-term commitment" to its retail presence.

Read more: Business Times

One-North Buyers Bring Checkbooks

Hudson Place Residences sold 201 of its 327 units on launch weekend at an average S$2,458 ($1,870) per square foot. All 14 three-bedroom deluxe units were snapped up in addition to almost 90% of the four-bedroom premiums. Ninety-nine percent of buyers were Singaporeans or PRs, most of them owner-occupiers, with interest from the western corridor and HDB heartlands like Punggol and Sengkang. The take-up puts neighboring Bloomsbury Residences to shame. That development only managed about 25 percent at its April 2025 launch. PropNex says that comparable launches in the area are going to be priced 20 to 30 percent higher after this result.

Read more: Business Times

Melbourne Gets Superjumbo, Frankfurt Gets a Snub

Singapore Airlines is making the A380 a year-round fixture on the Melbourne run for the first time since 2019, keeping the 471-seat superjumbo on daily SQ237 and SQ228 flights through at least March 2027. Frankfurt’s now bereft of the aircraft entirely over the winter schedule, dropping to Boeing 777-300ER service with frequencies pushed to as many as 20 weekly flights to cover the capacity gap. Frankfurt's First Class cabin will remain, but the Suites product is gone; travelers who specifically booked the A380 may end up in the older 2013 First Class instead (check your booking!). Melbourne passengers that previously booked on the 777 are going to get bumped up into the 2017 Suites cabin. Starlink installation is planned for the A350 and A380 long-haul fleet beginning in Q1 2027 through 2029.

Read more: Aviationa2z (seat capacity gap), Travel and Tour World (Starlink rollout)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Boards Get a Bill for the Bots

MAS brought bank CEOs together last week because they need to discuss the threat of AI-powered cyberattacks, and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam's message on Saturday was clear that board directors own this risk, and IT can no longer carry it alone. Vulnerabilities that once took expert teams weeks to find can now be found autonomously in hours or minutes, outpacing patching cycles before anyone even knows they're exposed. Fully autonomous end-to-end attack campaigns haven't been seen yet, but Tan said it’s "a matter of time."

Read more: CNA (UNC3886 telco hit), Business Times (CSA's 5 actions), Business Times (CII sectors)

Replace the Humans and Lose the Edge

Minister of State Jasmin Lau used her Parliament time on May 6 to deliver a frank warning to Singapore when she said that if bosses wholesale-replace workers with AI, they will wake up one day with no competitive edge once the same tools are available to everyone, AND have a new dependency on the vendors that sell them. Her view is that “voluntary” cannot mean optional. Where public resources are involved, worker outcomes will be asked for, and consistent shortcomings will get a review of how support will be applied. Manpower Minister Tan See Leng did have an empirical sweetener, however - a Ministry of Manpower study reports that so far only about 6 percent of Singapore companies that adopted AI had also cut headcount as a result.

Read more: Business Times (ESR worker support), Business Times (Tripartite Jobs Council).

Strait Talk on Empty Tanks

Singapore's oil product supply stocks fell to 44.83 million barrels in the week to May 6, the lowest since late July. Middle East crude and fuel imports are still stuck at near zero. Against that backdrop, PM Wong closed the 48th ASEAN Summit in Cebu on Saturday pushing for ratification of the ASEAN Petroleum Security Agreement, a deal that would allow member states help cover each other's oil and gas needs during supply disconnects. Leaders also floated a regional fuel stockpile modelled on the ASEAN Plus Three emergency rice reserve, and Philippine President Marcos said it could act as a shared "reservoir" that countries could lean on. Wong said the talks were "very early stage," and ministers will keep working through details before the November summit in Manila (and possibly into Singapore's 2027 chairmanship).

Read more: CNA (regional fuel stockpile), AsiaOne (2027 chairmanship), Business Times (44.83M barrels)

Advertisement:

Top Marks, Asterisk Included

FATF gave Singapore its highest monitoring rating on May 6, giving the Republic a "regular follow-up," label, which is the watchdog's most favorable category. Seven of 11 immediate outcomes were reported to be "substantially effective," the other four were rated "moderately effective." Thirty-eight of 40 technical compliance recommendations were judged compliant or largely compliant. The two that weren't covered sanctions and oversight of certain sectors, the same pressure points that let a S$3 billion ($2.3 billion) laundering operation run through the system before anyone (apparently) noticed in 2023 - to be fair, the review period was from 2020 to July 2025, so the bust is baked into the score, not buried by it.

Read more: Business Times

Spare the Rod and Spoil the Bully

Starting in 2027, male students aged nine and older can be caned at school for serious bullying, including cyberbullying, Education Minister Desmond Lee says. The maximum is three strokes for each incident, will requires the approval of the schoo’s principal, and can only be administered by authorised teachers after other measures have failed. The policy is the result of of a year-long ministry review triggered by several school bullying incidents last year, and applies only to boys (Singapore does not cane women for any offense). Girls who commit similar offences face detention, suspension, or reduced conduct grades. Lee said the approach is based on research showing children "make better choices when there are clear boundaries enforced by firm, meaningful consequences." The WHO maybe disagrees. In an August 2025 report, they said that corporal punishment in schools is "alarmingly widespread" and warned its consequences "can last a lifetime and undermine physical and mental health, education, and social and occupational functioning."

Read more: The Guardian (WHO child count), VnExpress (safety protocols), CNN (Michael Fay precedent)

Tourist Receipts Beat Expectations

Tourism receipts were a record S$32.8 billion ($25 billion) in 2025, blowing past STB's S$29 billion to S$30.5 billion forecast and clearing the bar set for 2026. The 16.9 million visitors spent across every category, but the real money was in MICE, where receipts were up 35 percent to S$2.3 billion ($1.76 billion), up from S$1.7 billion ($1.3 billion). STB now says it want's S$4.5 billion ($3.4 billion) in MICE spending by 2040. The government is adding S$740 million ($566 million) to the Tourism Development Fund for the next five years, more than double the S$300 million top-up in 2024.

Read more: Business Times (minister quotes), Business Times (Orchard Road tender)

Money Keeps Showing Up at the Door

Deposits were a record S$1.61 trillion ($1.2 trillion) in February, the same month the Straits Times Index crossed 5,000 for the first time. The local asset management business grew 12 percent y-o-y to S$6.07 trillion ($4.5 trillion) in 2024, and the number of single-family offices was numbered 2,000 at year-end, (up 43 percent). The archetypal new client is a Northeast Asian tech founder with US$50 million who restructured his family holdings through a corporate vehicle in SG without actually moving, drawn by English common law succession planning and a tax system that won’t punish him for living elsewhere.

Read more: South China Morning Post

More Seats to Europe, but They’re Tired

Singapore Airlines will run a record 128 weekly flights to 15 European cities this November, including Madrid for the first time since 2004, with 38 weekly services to London soaking up capacity that’s been vacated by Gulf carriers hamstrung by their regional conflict. Less convenient is what passengers will be treated to once they get on-board. The S$1.1 billion ($840 million) cabin retrofit that was originally promised for Q2 2026 has slipped to Q1 2027 at the earliest, with the new First Class on an open-ended timeline. SIA blames supply chain constraints and a seat certification delay. Safran, a contender for the new Business Class seat, delivered just 2,632 business class seats globally in all of 2025.

Read more: Simpleflying (128 flights, Madrid), Mainlymiles (cabin retrofit delay)

Hot Desks in a Cold Market

JustCo filed a preliminary prospectus with MAS on Thursday, putting the flex-office operator (backed by GIC and Frasers Property) in line for a local listing on the bourse. The company saw a S$2.7 million ($2.1 million) net profit in 2025 after two straight years of losses of S$22.6 million ($17.3 million), on revenue of S$144.2 million ($110.3 million). Cornerstone investors include JPMorgan Asset Management, Avanda, Japan's Amova, and Maybank Securities. DBS and UBS are joint issue managers. Pricing, valuation, and share count are all still placeholders. JustCo has 54 office centers in 12 cities, and 29,422 of its 37,500 workstations were occupied as of the end of last year.

Read more: Mingtiandi

Bankruptcy Judges Swap Numbers

Singapore and Indonesia's supreme courts have signed an MOU that will give judges in both countries a channel to coordinate on the same insolvency or restructuring case(s). It’s first arrangement of this type between the two countries. Signed on March 30 on the sidelines of a workshop in Bali, the agreement extends the UNCITRAL Model Law. In the new system, each court will be expected to assign a liaison, likely a senior registrar or judge, who will use prescribed rules on language, interpretation and response times to help shepherd the process.

Read more: Business Times

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Wong's Two-Front War

Lawrence Wong used the May Day Rally to deliver a two-pronged warning for Singapore on the Hormuz block and on AI. He said that the oil disruption could end up being worse than the 1970s oil shocks, and that AI is set to hollow out the first rung of the career ladder for the youngest workers. GDP shrank 0.3 percent QoQ in Q1 against revised Q4 2025 figures, MAS has tightened, and inflation forecasts for 2026 have been revised upwards into a range of 1.5 to 2.5 percent. Wong's line that "we may not be able to protect every job, but we will protect every worker" got applause, but the policy architecture around it is news. The Ministry of Manpower, NTUC and the Singapore National Employers Federation have come together to create a Tripartite Jobs Council that’s going to manage oversight of enterprise AI adoption, training and support for at-risk workers.

Read more: Business Times ($1B package), Business Times (National AI Council), Yahoo Finance (Wong), Business Times ($500M eldercare), Business Times (TJC three pillars)

Chips Cover for Crippled Refineries

The split inside Q1's headline number is where the action is as electronics output is up 30% year-on-year in March on semiconductor demand, as the chemicals cluster (about 1.7% of GDP) is running at half speed. Q1 GDP was reported at 4.6% YoY, down from a 5.7% pace in H2 2025. More than 70% of crude imports are from the Middle East, and with refineries operating at 50-60% capacity, the petrochemical sector is essentially parked. Gartner expects global semiconductor revenue to be $1.32 trillion in 2026, up from earlier estimates of “only” a trillion, and DBS has maintained buy ratings on UMS Integration, AEM Holdings, and Frencken Group. But chipmakers have their own Middle East exposure in helium, which is a necessary input in semiconductor manufacturing and also largely supplied from the Middle East. With full-year GDP expected at 3%, growth concerns could keep MAS on hold in July despite its earlier tightening and a core inflation forecast that’s gone up between 1.5 and 2.5% from 1-2%.

Read more: Sbr (refinery capacity), Sbr (semi revenue)

Wellington Locks In the Pantry

Singapore and New Zealand signed what's being called the world's first legally binding bilateral supply chain resilience agreement on Monday. The deal covers food, fuel, healthcare, chemicals and construction materials. It’s come at a fortuitous time - when hands were first pumped on the deal in October, nobody expected the Strait of Hormuz to be a live problem four months later. NZ PM Christopher Luxon told RNZ the treaty was already in effect before the ink dried, and he brought Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Trade Minister Todd McClay along to visit Singapore's refineries in person. Two-way trade is about US$6.5 billion, and Singapore is the second-largest source of investment into New Zealand.

Read more: Business Times (six CSP pillars), AsiaOne (Willis fuel meetings), Rnz Co NZ (NZ trade)

Advertisement:

Mainland Money Finds a New Home

Mainland Chinese firms have gone from a rounding error to the second-largest source of fixed-asset investment as they raised their share from 2.5% to 21% of the S$14.16 billion ($11.07 billion) total in 2025. American investors slid from first to third as their share collapsed from 55.5% to 17.3%. Europe now sits in the top spot at around 25%.

Read more: South China Morning Post

The Pump, the Pantry, the Pinch

RON95 fuel is up nearly 20 percent and diesel has gone up more than 50 percent since the Hormuz blockade started to bite in late February, pushing a typical 50-liter fill-up from S$142.50 ($106) to S$171 ($128). The squeeze, unfortunately, doesn't stop at the pump. A SingStat analysis of supermarket pricing data, released April 29, found shrinkflation is on the rise for commonly bought home items, with instant coffee/ tea, laundry detergent, ice cream, milk powder and diapers leading the way. So, for consumers this means the same price for a smaller box.

Read more: AsiaOne (airline fares, utilities), Business Times (unit pricing pilot)

SGX Wants to See the Pay Stub

SGX RegCo's public consultation window, opened April 22, is seeking input on changes that would force listed companies to spell out the metrics behind executive pay, their dividend policies, and how they talk to investors. About two-thirds of the largest issuers currently don't disclose having an investor relations policy, and (an overlapping, but different) two-thirds of listed firms don’t currently share the metrics that tether (or not?) executive pay to long-term value. Right now, companies need only report directors' and CEO remuneration totals, with "comply-or-explain" nudges doing the rest. Under the proposal, companies would have to publish the specific KPIs that drive pay decisions and explain how those targets align with the creation of shareholder value. SGX RegCo chief executive Tan Boon Gin said (we imagine dryly), there is "room for disclosure requirements to level up."

Read more: CNA

More Gas Now, Hydrogen Maybe Later

The Energy Market Authority has put out its third call for gas turbines in three years, this time wanting up to 1,800 MW of new combined-cycle capacity between now and 2032. The regulator is forecasting peak demand of 9.6 to 11.4 GW (seems like a wide spread, but forecasting is difficult?) by 2031, growing 2.4 to 4.8 percent yearly on the back of semiconductors and data center needs. Interestingly, the turbines are required to be hydrogen-ready, but the actual fuel, for now, remains gas. Proposals for a 2031 unit are due Jun 24, 2026, bids for 2032 units are required by Sep 30.

Read more: Business Times

Four Months Down to One

From January 2027, construction firms won't need to force new workers from China and Thailand to take overseas competency tests before getting entry to Singapore in a move that is expected to shorten the hiring process from four months to one. National Development Minister Chee Hong Tat shared the change at the BuildSG Lead Summit in response to industry complaints that overseas certification was slow and, in any event, often mismatched workers' actual deployment needs. Workers will instead be tested on trade knowledge and practical skills once they arrive in Singapore (companies will need to reserve a test slot before arrival). South Asian source countries, including India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar, will follow in January 2028.

Read more: Business Times

Silicon Box Squares Up

Singapore startup Silicon Box expects to ship more than a billion chiplet-based devices this year by ditching round wafers for square panels, which waste less surface area. Founded in May 2021, they shipped 250 million devices by the end of Q1 and expect 1.5 billion cumulative units to be sold by October. Q1 revenue has been reported to be about three-quarters of the full-year 2025 tally, and booked order volume is running at 10 to 12 times 2025 levels.

Read more: Business Times

Hotels Cash In As Missiles Fly

Tourist arrivals rose 2.8% to 4.4 million in Q1 2026, and hotel RevPAR climbed 4.8% to S$228.45 ($175) in the quarter. February (CNY) did most of the work with mainland China arrivals up 61.3%, and room revenue inflated 13.3% that month alone. STB's Poh Chi Chuan says recent business events are a picture of "strong participation and healthy attendance," waving off MICE jitters. Average occupancy was just over 83%, up from 80.54% a year earlier. Total room revenue for the quarter was reported S$1.36 billion ($1.04 billion).

Read more: Business Times (ARR & STB CEO), Business Times (MICE resilience)

AI Pads Paychecks, Picks the Locks

Software engineers with AI skills are now earning 13 to 25 percent more than peers without them, as per SCMP’s reporting. Less helpfully, the same technology was reported to have been involved in 84 percent of reported Singapore security breaches here over the past 12 months. Sixty percent of Singapore-based organizations were breached at least once in the past year, and 92 percent of Singaporean leaders (the highest share of any region surveyed) fear "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks on data that, while encrypted today, may be easy to decipher tomorrow.

Read more: South China Morning Post (AI salary premium), Frontier Enterprise (breach visibility gap)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Hormuz Is the Warm-Up Act

Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan didn't mince words at CNBC's Converge Live event on Wednesday. He said that if the U.S. and China go to war in the Pacific, "what you are seeing in the Strait of Hormuz will be a dry run." The comment came along with a reminder that the Strait of Malacca, at its narrowest, is only two nautical miles wide, compared to Hormuz's 21. Iran's parliament is reportedly drafting legislation to put tolls on Hormuz shipping, and Balakrishnan was asked whether that playbook might be used in Singapore. His answer was clear in that no tolls, no interdiction, no suspension of transit passage was possible, because Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia share an interest in keeping the strait open, and all parties have been told Singapore wants to operate on the basis of UNCLOS. "We will be useful, but we will not be made use of," Balakrishnan said.

Read more: CNBC (U.S.-Singapore trade), Yahoo (neutrality)

Hormuz Bill Arrives, SMEs Pay First

The Singapore Index of Inflation Expectations survey, published April 22, found that nearly 9 in 10 respondents expect prices to go up over the next year, up from 83.4 percent in December. “Geopolitical conflict” was the top reason. The Singapore Business Federation's poll of 254 firms tells an even worse story at street level. Two-thirds are reporting “moderate-to-severe” hits from the Iran war, with energy costs the most-common complaint. The split between large firms and SMEs is the interesting bit. Seventy eight percent of large companies say they are confident they’ll be able to manage the volatility, only a third of SMEs say the same.

Read more: Business Times (core inflation), Business Times (salary fears), Business Times (viability)

CPF Comes for the Local Bourse

Citi reckons the new CPF life-cycle investment scheme, launching in 2028, could result in an additional S$6 to S$9 billion ($4.4 to $6.6 billion) moving into Singapore equities every year, if 10 to 15 percent of the S$58 billion in yearly CPF contributions gets allocated to stocks. Only 3 percent of CPF's S$661 billion in cash funds currently sits in equities in the existing investment scheme, the lowest pension equity exposure in Asia-Pacific (the regional range runs from 10 to 48 percent).

Read more: Business Times

Advertisement:

Robots Wanted, No Experience Necessary

MPA and PSA want proposals to run autonomous container feeder vessels between Singapore's port gateways like Pasir Panjang and Tuas. The inter-terminal shuffle is currently handled by smaller craft at sea or prime movers on land. The call, which came April 22 during Singapore Maritime Week, asks applicants to address navigational safety, traffic management, cybersecurity, interaction with conventional vessels, and "viable business models." The week also brought more than S$100 million ($75 million) in R&D commitments over five years, a new Oceans-X data exchange platform, and a maritime technology roadmap built around autonomous port operations, alternative fuels, smart ships, and intelligent port services.

Read more: Business Times (minister quotes), Business Times (Oceans-X), Business Times (EOI requirements), Business Times (AI rollout)

Cross-Border Trains Stretch Their Legs

RTSO ran multiple trains together at higher speeds on April 24, validating regenerative braking and other systems on the Johor Bahru-Singapore link. Two days earlier, Singapore's Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow and Malaysia's Anthony Loke toured Woodlands North together, where automated immigration gates appeared to be switched on for testing. Loke has floated fares of around S$5 to S$7 ($3.70 to $5.20) per trip, operations are expected to begin toward the end of this year.

Read more: AsiaOne

Superjumbo Skips Dubai, Heads Down Under

Singapore Airlines has reassigned its A380 from the suspended Dubai route to Melbourne, restoring superjumbo service on the Australian run for the first time in nearly three years. Dubai will remain offline until at least June; a tentative return is penciled in for late October if geopolitics cooperate. Sydney and Melbourne between them now get three daily A380 flights.

Read more: Aviationa2z

The AI Agent Has Left the Building

IMDA's Model AI Governance Framework for Agentic AI, published in January, and the Cyber Security Agency's companion paper "Securing Agentic AI" together are one of the first times any jurisdiction has published guidance for AI systems that both advise and act. The papers describe browsing, executing code, sending communications, and chaining decisions through enterprise workflows before a human can get its hands dirty.

Read more: Startupfortune

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

MAS Blinks First as Hormuz Hits Home

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) tightened monetary policy on April 14 for the first time since October 2022, steepening the slope of the S$NEER policy band as the Iran war's energy shock starts working through the economy. The tightening was expected (15/18 economists polled by Bloomberg called it), but an inflation forecast change sting. MAS raised its core and headline CPI range to 1.5-2.5 per cent for 2026, up from the 1-2 per cent range it set three months ago. The growth picture is murkier. Q1 GDP came in at 4.6 per cent y-o-y against a median forecast of 5.8 per cent, and contracted 0.3 per cent on a seasonally adjusted quarterly basis. Manufacturing led the pullback, swinging from 4.5 per cent sequential growth to a 4.9 per cent contraction. The full-year outlook looks like it will come in at 2.5 to 3.5 per cent, MAS will update its own forecast again next month. At least one more tightening move is expected this year, analysts are split between deciding if that will come in July or October.

Read more: Business Times (Brent figure), Business Times (July vs October), Business Times (MTI release date), Business Times (sector breakdown)

Chips Do the Heavy Lifting

Non-oil domestic exports rose 15.3% in March, the seventh straight month of growth, blowing past analyst forecasts of 8.1% on the back of a 74% year-on-year electronics increase. Semiconductors were the engine: integrated circuit shipments more than doubled, up 113.8%, with chips alone making up S$1.7 billion ($1.3 billion) of the S$3.1 billion ($2.3 billion) in electronics exports for the month. AI demand is carrying the number, TSMC already has upped its 2026 revenue outlook on it. The Iran war, now in its second month, hasn't visibly hampered any of this yet, but there is a catch in the that’s waiting. The sector runs on helium, and Qatar is one of the world's biggest suppliers. The Singapore Semiconductor Industry Association says nobody is squawking yet, but a prolonged conflict would eventually squeeze margins. Non-electronics exports slipped 0.6%, a much narrower drop than February's 6.9%.

Read more: Straits Times (exports), Business Times (disk/PC figures), Business Times (industry quotes)

To USTR: Check Your Math

MTI sent two written submissions to the USTR on April 15, pushing back on Section 301 investigations into forced labor and industrial overcapacity. The numbers it brought are awkward for Washington. The US ran a goods surplus of $3.6 billion and $29.6 billion respectively in 2025. Singapore is home to 6,600 American companies which support more than 250,000 US jobs, and that the State Department's own 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report which puts Singapore in its Tier 1 (that’s the good one!). Pharmaceuticals, the lone sector where the US runs a deficit with Singapore, saw its trade gap narrow from $17.7 billion in 2024 to $12.9 billion in 2025.

Read more: Business Times (capacity utilization), Business Times (jobs)

Advertisement:

Changi Shrugs Off Middle East Woes

Changi notched 17.6 million passenger movements in Q1 2026, up 2.3% year-on-year, a number that looks unremarkable until you factor in that it absorbed a collapse in Middle East traffic of 80% in March alone. The airport didn't paper over the gap so much as route around it. Vietnam and China were the standout performers in the top ten markets, rising 26.5% and 17.7% respectively. Airlines added roughly 90 additional flights to cities including Frankfurt, London, Paris and Sydney during the March disruption. The top five markets for the quarter were China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and India, a lineup that tells its own story about where demand is coming from. Airfreight throughput was 517,000 tons for the quarter, up 7.6% year-on-year; exports and imports were both higher than Q1 2025. The trailing 12-month passenger count through March was 70.4 million, the highest ever recorded over any 12-month window at Changi.

Read more: ftnnews

Small States Pick Up the Megaphone

Burhan Gafoor, Singapore's Permanent Representative to the UN, gave a joint statement at the General Assembly on April 16 on behalf of Fiji, Jamaica, Malta and Singapore, calling on all parties to restore unimpeded transit through the Strait of Hormuz. The presentation came after Russia and China vetoed a Security Council resolution on April 7 that had cleared 11-2 (Pakistan and Colombia abstained). The four countries presented their position frankly by saying that they had worked substantively to negotiating UNCLOS in 1982 and continue to have an abiding interest in its enforcement. Iran has largely closed the strait to non-Iranian shipping since US-Israeli airstrikes began on February 28, and while an April 8 ceasefire was meant to temporarily reopen it, follow-up talks in Pakistan ended without a deal.

Read more: CNA

Fuel Insurance Policy Gets an AUS Signature

Four ministers from Singapore and Australia said on April 17 that the two countries have "substantially concluded" a Protocol on Economic Resilience and Essential Supplies, a formal add-on to their existing FTA. The protocol commits both sides to refrain from export restrictions on petroleum oils including diesel and LNG during supply disruptions. The same package formalises the Australia-Singapore Economic Resilience Dialogue as the working mechanism. It will enter into force once both governments complete their domestic processes.

Read more: CNA

You Can't Birth Them Overnight

Singapore tallied only 27,500 births in 2025, the lowest number ever, as the fertility rate dropped to a flaccid 0.87. DPM Gan Kim Yong told Parliament the population will start shrinking in the early 2040s if nothing changes, saying it’s an "existential challenge." The government's near-term answer is giving 25,000 to 30,000 new citizenships, and an additional ~40,000 new PRs, in each of the next five years. That will add up to 70,000 people yearly. "You can't overnight give birth to young people," Gan said.

Read more: Says

One Shovel Sends Five Thousand Offline

A contractor drilling bored piles for the North-South Corridor hit fibre cables at just before 11 AM on April 18, knocking out broadband for about 5,000 users in Ang Mo Kio, Bishan, Sengkang and Punggol for 20 hours. Singtel, StarHub, M1 and MyRepublic all went down together. The damage went further than most noticed, as LTA's bus ETA system runs on the same fibre, and stops in the affected districts started showing phantom arrival times. NetLink Trust crews worked through wet weather overnight to get service back by 7am Sunday. IMDA is investigating under the Telecommunications Act, the same law that fined subcontractor 2K International a hefty S$314,000 ($233,000) earlier this year for a nearly identical 19-hour outage in 2019.

Read more: CNA (restoration), Straits Times (benchmark stats), CNA (outage timeline), CNA (bus ETA)

695 Speeders a Day, Footpaths Aren't Much Safer

Traffic deaths came in at a 10-year high of 149 last year (up from 142 the year before), and speeding cases rose from 201,358 to 253,550. That’s almost 700 drivers knicked daily. On the footpaths, LTA netted 308 cyclist and PMD offenses in a single month and impounded 100 devices, drawing more than 270 online comments, many saying that the situation is much worse than the numbers indicate. Some commenters claimed errant riders get tipped off through Telegram and WhatsApp groups before operations start, with one asserting that more than 90% of scofflaws fled once word got out.

Read more: Yahoo News SG (policy), The Independent Singapore (public evasion)

War Jitters Create Penthouse Shoppers

Luxury condos in Singapore's Core Central Region priced at S$5 million ($3.8 million) and up were traded 75 times in Q1 2026, the strongest quarter since Q4 2023, when 84 changed hands. New sales totaled S$400 million ($305 million), up from S$330 million in Q4 2025. River Modern's launch accounted for 38 of those deals. Buyers are looking atl ocal penthouses as safe-haven assets as the Middle East burns. Good Class Bungalow deals told a different story, sliding to four transactions from nine, though one in the Gallop Road area still raised S$31.5 million ($24 million).

Read more: Business Times

Overqualified and Loving It

Nearly one in five resident workers held jobs below their qualification level in 2025, up from 16.3 percent a decade ago, and about nine in ten of are there by choice. The Ministry of Manpower and NTUC put out studies on April 14 suggesting this turn of events is a feature, not a bug. They say that workers are choosing to trade credential-matched roles for more stability, flexible hours, and whatever else sparks their fancy. The involuntary slice, which is made up of workers who want better-matched work but can't find it, was reported at just 1.7 percent. Workers under 30 are the most mismatched, with 29.7 percent of that cohort reportedly overqualified.

Read more: Business Times

Ten Cents to Save the Can

Return Right, the national deposit return scheme first floated by a citizen workgroup in 2019, went live on the simple premise of a 10-cent refundable deposit on eligible bottles and cans. BCRS Ltd, a not-for-profit set up by industry and licensed by the National Environment Agency, is running the operation, built to handle more than a billion containers annually to recover as much as 16,000 tonnes of material. Containers that show the Deposit Mark are coming into the market now, existing stock without the mark is still on shelves and won't qualify for refunds.

Read more: Indexbox

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Band-Aid for the Energy Burn

The government rolled out a support package worth close to S$1 billion ($780 million) on Tuesday, in the biggest emergency fiscal response since the pandemic. Corporate tax rebates were increased from 40 to 50 percent, with further cash grants bringing the total cap to S$40,000 ($31,200) per company. A S$500 CDC voucher tranche is getting pulled forward from January 2027 to June, and a one-off Cost-of-Living Special Payment will be increased by S$200. Platform workers, taxi and private-hire drivers will get direct S$200 cash payouts. Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam told Parliament the Republic has enough fuel and food but said that higher prices and fewer choices are likely, in addition to noting that even after hostilities stop, oil and gas export capacity won't recover quickly because of damaged infrastructure in the Gulf.

Read more: Business Times (corporate rebate), Business Times (reserve adequacy), Business Times (facility cooling), Business Times (price freeze), Business Times (bus fare subsidy)

Tariff Wave Two: The One That Bites

Washington switched tools after the Supreme Court killed Liberation Day tariffs in February, replacing emergency powers with Sections 232 and 301. Section 232 lets the US tariff entire product categories on national security grounds, from semiconductors to pharmaceuticals, and Section 301 puts a bulls-eye on countries that are considered to be using unfair trade practices. Unlike the temporary 10 per cent import surcharge that was placed under Section 122, both will put restrictions into domestic law, making them more difficult to later negotiate away. Singapore weathered 2025's first wave, mustering 5 per cent growth against downgraded forecasts of as low as zero, but the new American strategy will hit the export engine directly. Even before any actual tariffs are applied, the uncertainty is damaging. Trade with the United States accounted for roughly a quarter of Singapore GDP in 2024.

Read more: Straits Times

Gan Goes to Washington

Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong is in the US through April 17, meeting cabinet secretaries and members of Congress as the two countries celebrate six decades of diplomatic ties. He’s pulling up just as Washington is sleuthing to find alleged excess semiconductor capacity. Gan is expected to launch Enterprise Singapore's fourth US office in Austin, join IMF Spring Meetings in his role as MAS chairman, and talk about economic cooperation with officials in Texas. Bilateral trade in goods and services was $317.1 billion in 2024 (Washington runs a consistent surplus).

Read more: CNA (Austin office), AsiaOne (Semafor conference), Business Times (USTR details)

Advertisement:

Fuel Buddies Make It Official

"As long as upstream supplies continue", was Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's asterisk when he and Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese signed an agreement this week to keep LNG and refined fuels flowing between the two countries. Australia supplies 32 percent of Singapore’s LNG, and the Republic is responsible for the supply of 55 percent of Australia's petrol, 22 percent of its jet fuel, and 15 percent of its diesel. Wong assured Albanese that fuel exports won't be restricted, even as the crisis squeezes crude supplies; at least one Jurong Island refinery is running at 60 percent capacity. Both sides plan to make the arrangement legally binding and are expected to have further ministerial dialogues on energy resilience, but neither leader went home with any new shipments in hand.

Read more: Business Times (32% LNG figure), Abc Net (maximum efforts pledge), Sbs (November 17 date), Abc Net (60% refinery capacity), The Guardian ($10B petrol value)

No Toll on the High Seas

"It is not a privilege to be granted by any bordering state, it is not a licence to be supplicated for, it is not a toll to be paid." Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan told Parliament on April 7 that transit passage through international straits is a right under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, not a bargaining chip, in a powerful statement of principle. Balakrishnan called on all sides to stop attacks on non-belligerent states and engage in good faith negotiations for a lasting resolution.

Read more: AsiaOne (UNCLOS statement), Business Times

Flag Carrier Grounded by Fuel Math

Jet fuel at roughly double the cost is was at the beginning of this year has cut Singapore Airlines' quarterly net profit by more than half. The carrier has reduced routes, hiked surcharges, and cut capacity through May despite healthy passenger loads through February, wiping out the advantage of its historically good work on hedging fuel costs. Management says that operating conditions are going to remain tough through June, contradicting earlier hopes expectations and sending the stock price lower.

Read more: Nomadlawyer (summer forecast), Thetraveler (cancellation timing), Aviationa2z (Dhaka expansion)

Bull Market with an Empty Dance Card

A 23% climb in the Straits Times index through 2025 (the best showing since 2009), supported the benchmark index’s move through 5,000 for the first time in February, but the exchange can barely get anyone to show up for a debut. The number of IPOs rose from six in 2024 to 16 last year (less impressive against Hong Kong's 119). Delistings and buyouts pushed the roster to a 20-year low of 605 names in October as the island's biggest names keep listing elsewhere: Grab chose Nasdaq in 2021, and GLP, which delisted in SG in 2018, is expected to relist in Hong Kong later this year.

Read more: Financial Times

Six Figures for a Car Permit

COE premiums jumped in all categories during April's first bidding round, with mainstream cars hitting S$118,000 ($87,700), up 5.5 per cent, and commercial vehicles topping the S$80k level ($59,500), prices not seen since October 2023. Motorcycles cracked S$10,000 for the first time since 2024. Legacy Japanese and German brands have been clearing stock ahead of Parf rebate cuts that took effect in February, but Chinese EV demand has staying strong.

Read more: Business Times

Robotaxis Roll Into Punggol

Grab and ComfortDelGro got the government's nod to partner with Chinese autonomous vehicle makers WeRide and Pony.ai to test robotaxis on public roads in Punggol; the transport ministry expectes 100 to 150 vehicles by the end of the year. The vehicles will ride with safety officers to start, but the plan is to eventually go fully driverless, matching what's already running in Beijing, Shenzhen, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Read more: South China Morning Post

East Side Gets a Hospital, Eventually

Health Minister Ong Ye Kung announced plans to release government land for a new private not-for-profit acute hospital in eastern Singapore with 300 to 400 beds. It would be the first such land release in nearly two decades. The tender will use a fixed-price model where bidders compete on care quality and cost efficiency rather than the price of the land, a deliberate shift after the 2008 tender for Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital saw S$1.25 billion ($940 million) of a S$2 billion ($1.5 billion) project go to just buying the land, as staff was poached from public hospitals. The ministry wants to pick a winner in the second half of this year.

Read more: Business Times (tender timeline), The Independent Singapore (Mount Alvernia context)

Blaze on the Docks, but Business as Usual

A container fire on Evergreen Marine's Ever Lenient burned for more than eight hours at PSA Pasir Panjang Terminal on Friday before being extinguished overnight. The 334.8 meter vessel, London-registered and built in 2014, saw no injuries or leaks (oil or otherwise). PSA is now offloading the affected containers while investigators try to figure out what sparked it, but port operations at the world's second-busiest container hub didn’t skip a beat.

Read more: CNA (extinguishment), Business Times (ship specs)

Seven Centuries of Cargo Proves the Point

Archaeologists say they’ve documented more than 2,350 shards of 14th-century Chinese blue-and-white porcelain from a single shipwreck off the coast. It’s the largest collection of this kind ever found in a single vessel. The cargo has been dated to some time around 1340 and 1352, when imperial restrictions had already eased up, but before civil war shut down Jingdezhen's kilns. The ceramics match similar pieces that have been excavated from Temasek trading sites nearby. At least 300 bowls made the voyage before sinking, proof that the island which became Singapore was at the centre of long-distance maritime trade networks seven centuries before it became the world's busiest transshipment port.

Read more: Earth

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Hormuz Hangover Hits Home

Singapore has dusted off its crisis playbook. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong activated the Homefront Crisis Ministerial Committee - dormant for years, and now suddenly essential - to coordinate the Middle East fallout across five ministries. K Shanmugam, chairing the effort, warned Saturday that food prices are going to have to climb alongside fuel as fertilizer and shipping costs go up, but the government hasn't put any consumption curbs into action yet. The Energy Market Authority isn't sugarcoating what's coming either as its telling everyone to prepare for "further and potentially sharper increases" in electricity price adjustments as about a quarter of all seaborne oil remains cut off by the Strait of Hormuz. Wong plans to bring forward Budget 2026 support measures when Parliament sits April 7. Details are under wraps, but the urgency is clear.

Read more: CNA (stockpile duration), Business Times (Australia/NZ partnerships), Business Times (95% gas dependency), Business Times (pipeline diversification)

Tiger and Yeo's Brew Their Exit

Tiger Beer maker Asia Pacific Breweries told workers on March 24 it's sending large-scale production to Malaysia and Vietnam. A week later, another local beverage maker, Yeo Hiap Seng followed suit. It will consolidate its canned drinks manufacturing across the Causeway and cut 9 percent of the local headcount. Two home-grown brands walking out the door in the same fortnight is not only coincidence. Post-pandemic increases in energy, logistics, and raw material costs have made Singapore's factory floor brutally uncompetitive for volume manufacturing. Both companies promise (for now) that they'll keep headquarters here. The Republic has been drifting away from labour-intensive manufacturing for decades, but technology is now making it trivially easy to produce across the Causeway while doing the branding from Raffles Place; these two might be a canary in the coal mine for the tipping point.

Read more: Business Times (Yeo financials, severance), Business Times (industry-wide exodus)

OCBC Joins the Hundred-Billion Club

OCBC's shares hit a record S$22.65 on Wednesday, getting its market cap to top S$100 billion for the first time and making it only the second Singapore-listed company to join that club after DBS. The rally is the crescendo of an impressive catch-up as OCBC lagged DBS through most of 2025, then delivered what Macquarie says is the strongest Q4 from the three local banks. Macquarie now says OCBC is its top local bank play. Citi still prefers DBS but has kept its buy on OCBC.

Read more: Business Times

Advertisement:

Four Down in the Chip Probe

Singapore charged a fourth executive in its Nvidia chip export probe last week, pulling Aperia Cloud Services CFO Jenny Lim into the dock alongside the firm's CEO and head of sales. It is alleged that the trio told Dell that local affiliate Aperia International would be the end user for servers (which possibly contained export-controlled Nvidia chips), when in fact the servers were actually going to be sent to Malaysia. Nine people have been arrested so far. The probe picked up speed after US lawmakers singled out Singapore in January, demanding more from countries they accused of letting chips slip through to China. Aperia Cloud Services, barely three years old, had marketed itself as Southeast Asia's first qualified Nvidia cloud partner.

Read more: Business Times

City-State Wants to Be the World's Vault

Singapore wants to babysit the world's gold. The government is pitching central banks on keeping their bullion reserves here in a play to pull gold-trading gravity away from Hong Kong. Officials have been keen with precious metals ambitions before, but parking sovereign reserves is a new level of aspiration. Central banks, naturally, don't stash gold lightly, and the bet is that Singapore's political stability, legal framework, and tax treatment can pry business from a Hong Kong as it navigates increasing oversight from Beijing.

Read more: Bloomberg

Lower Premiums, Costlier Care

Insurance premiums for many have dropped (blessed relief!), but out-of-pocket costs have likely gone up (cursed market!). New Integrated Shield Plan riders that kicked in on April 1 reduce premiums by 30 to 84 percent, but policyholders now will be responsible for deductibles of at least S$1,500 ($1,110) and co-payment caps that have doubled to S$6,000 ($4,450). The government-mandated redesign will affect about three million Singaporeans and comes as medical cost inflation is projected to reach 16.9 percent in 2026. That rate would make Singapore the priciest healthcare market in Asia-Pacific. Insurers are trying to sell the lower premiums as a fair trade for adjusted risk, of course, but it seems that anyone who though "full coverage" meant never opening their wallet is getting a lesson in fine print.

Read more: Business Times (savings percentages), Business Times (inflation projection)

rPump Fiction

Cnergy's three petrol stations price 95-octane gasoline at S$2.40 a liter, which is more than a dollar less than Shell's price of S$3.47. At first, it appears like the deal of the year, but Shell customers that stack their loyalty awards only end up paying about S$2.53. The difference between the sticker price and the effective price shows something interesting about how fuel retail actually works in Singapore, where the billboard rates are mostly theater, and the actual competition plays out in the details.

Read more: Business Times

422 Landlords Caught Hiding Rent

Singapore's tax authority clawed back S$4.8 million ($3.7 million) from 422 property owners who (whoops!) forgot to report their rental income. The haul nearly quadruples the S$1.3 million take from the last audit. IRAS investigated 793 landlords through 2024 and 2025 after noticing filing discrepancies. Some owners claim to have thought that paying property tax covered the rental income too. It, sadly for them, does not. Penalties for mistaken returns can be as much as 200 percent of the undercharged tax, fines of up to S$5,000 and three years in the pokey. If it is decided that evasion was deliberate, scofflaws risk fines of up to S$50,000, penalties up to 400 percent, and five years behind bars.

Read more: VnExpress

Terry Xu's S$420,000 Tab

The High Court ordered Online Citizen editor Terry Xu to pay S$210,000 ($156,000) to each of two Cabinet ministers - K Shanmugam and Tan See Leng for a December 2024 article questioning their property transactions. It was found that Xu “acted with malice” since he ignored legal warnings, breached an injunction, AND THEN continued to double down on the claims in four follow-up posts. For those keeping score, that's two defamation judgments against the same editor in five years.

Read more: Business Times

Belgians Bet on the Island

Belgian logistics firm Katoen Natie is sinking S$60 million ($45 million) into a new automated warehouse on Jurong Island in order to expand its petrochemical storage capacity by more than a fifth. The plan looks like it’s going ahead despite (or maybe because of), Middle East disruptions that are rattling chemical supply chains. The investment brings Katoen Natie's total Singapore investment to around S$250 million ($186 million). The warehouse will create 25 jobs.

Read more: Business Times (Middle East impact), Business Times (specs)

Punggol's Robot Taxis Ditch the Test Track

Autonomous shuttles are rolling onto public roads in Punggol this month, almost a decade after Singapore's first driverless vehicle tests. Two partnerships are behind the launch. Grab is hooked up with WeRide, and ComfortDelGro is riding with Pony.ai. Routes are as long as 12 km, and connect housing blocks to Oasis Terraces and Punggol Plaza. Prices begin at zero; fares are expected later this year as the LTA evaluates scaling beyond Punggol.

Read more: Business Times

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Hormuz Choke Hits Home

The Strait of Hormuz closure is hammering Singapore from all sides - from the pump to the trading floor. Bunker fuel prices have nearly doubled to $1,000, Shell has pushed diesel past $4 a litre, (a penny shy of its premium V-Power price), and fuel oil prices are swinging so fast that OTC quotes are only "valid for one to two seconds," as one energy disputes lawyer put it. Brent crude is holding above US$100. Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan framed by saying the Hormuz closure is "in a sense, an Asian crisis," a vulnerability long known but never tested to this extreme.

Read more: Bastillepost (regional vulnerability), Business Times (trading chaos), AsiaOne (pump price), Business Times (hiring slowdown), Business Times (factory contraction)

Beijing Locks the Back Door on Singwashing

Meta's $2 billion acquisition of Manus AI last year looked like evidence of a path for Chinese founders to sidestep both Washington and Beijing by opening up shop in Singapore. The CCP has other ideas. Beijing has reportedly prohibited Manus co-founders Xiao Hong and Ji Yichao from leaving the country and begun a review into whether the sale violated technology export laws, freezing a deal that had captivated Silicon Valley. The company had moved its headquarters and core teams to Singapore in 2025, while getting financial backing from San Francisco's Benchmark and other foreign investors. The money drew flak from both U.S. lawmakers who'd banned American investment in Chinese AI firms, and players in Beijing. "The path taken by Manus: people will not go down that route anymore," says Wayne Shiong of Argo Venture Partners. It seems like the next play will be to start-up outside China from day one, instead of trying to make a mid-growth pivot.

Read more: CNBC

Rules First, Friends Second

A Washington probe named Singapore as one of 16 economies accused of unfair trading practices, and Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong had a a pointed response for reporters by saying there will be no bending of the rules-based trade principles, even if sticking to them hurts in the short term. The Trade Ministry pushed back hard, reminding everyone that Singapore ran a $27 billion trade deficit with the US in 2024, in contradiction to American claims of a surplus of the same amount, as well as by pointing out that industrial space occupancy sits at a healthy 90 percent, not the slack capacity Washington suggested. While Gan said negotiations with the US are ongoing, the Prime Minister spent the week in Hong Kong wooing tycoons including Richard Li and Sino Group's Daryl Ng, to talk up collaboration on innovation.

Read more: South China Morning Post (HK meetings), Financial Times (UK digital deal), Business Times (deficit figures)

Advertisement:

Digital Trade's Open-Door Rulebook

Singapore and 65 other WTO members put the world's first global digital trade agreement into action on March 28, covering roughly 70% of world trade after negotiations started in 2017. The Agreement on Electronic Commerce creates baseline rules for cross-border digital transactions, including legal recognition of electronic documents as being as good as paper. Digital transactions now make up more than 60% of global GDP, according to the European Commission, and failing to put these rules into place could cost US$159 billion in yearly lost trade (WTO and OECD research). The UK and Singapore are also going ahead with a bilateral digital trade deal as the WTO stays deadlocked on more general reforms. The agreement is open to new members at any time, a diplomatic hedge for an architecture that still finds both India and the United States absent.

Read more: Straits Times

Lion's Vault

MAS wants Singapore to be the home of Asia's gold. The authority announced a gold system push on March 27, covering physical vaulting, OTC clearing, capital market products, and central bank storage services that would put the city-state on the same shelf as Dubai, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. The working group includes heavyweights DBS, JPMorgan, UBS, and the World Gold Council, among others. A day earlier, the LionGlobal Singapore Physical Gold ETF launched on SGX, offering fractional exposure in SGD and USD. Deputy Chairman Chee Hong Tat says the effort is "planting trees" in the wealth management sector, reminding everyone that setting roots will take time but will set the city up for a harvest as gold demand continues to rise.

Read more: Cryptonews

IPO Bait: Take Two

Temasek and MTI have tapped Fullerton Fund Management and 65 Equity Partners to manage a second S$1.5 billion Anchor Fund tranche to luring listings to the local bourse. Fullerton will play as cornerstone investor in public offerings, and 65 Equity Partners is expected to work with promising late-stage private companies on growth capital and IPO prep. There was a previous S$1.5 billion tranche that was launched in 2022 to solve the same problem, so I guess we know how well that went.

Read more: Business Times

CapitaLand's Data Centre Spree

CapitaLand Ascendas REIT dropped S$1.4 billion on three properties, headlined by its first Japan play, which is a 49% stake in a Tier III hyperscale data centre in Osaka for S$620.7 million. The REIT also picked up a cluster of logistics and industrial buildings at 25 Loyang Crescent and a 50% share in a business space on Science Park Drive. All three deals are expected to lift distribution per unit by about 2.1% on a pro forma basis. The Osaka move is indicative of an inclination to bet on AI-driven demand in existing digital hubs, diversifying beyond the REIT's current Singapore core.

Read more: Business Insider

Last Call for Tiger's Singapore Brewery

Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore is cutting 130 jobs over the next two years as it winds down large-scale brewing operations here by year-end 2027. The manufacturer of Tiger Beer currently employs 540. The retrenchment is part of parent company Heineken's global cuts of up to 6,000 roles, announced in February after the Dutch brewer's volumes dropped 2.8 percent last year. Tiger, born in Singapore in 1932, will very shortly no longer be brewed on the island that made it famous.

Read more: Business Times

Singapore Eyes the Atom

The National Environment Agency is expected to commission three studies on nuclear safety frameworks, global best practices, and environmental impacts as the conversation about whether reactor technology can break Singapores 90%+ dependence on imported natural gas. The work comes alongside ongoing Energy Market Authority evaluations of advanced nuclear tech, which started as part of the push to reach net zero by 2050. A 2012 pre-feasibility study came to the conclusion that reactors weren't suited for a small, densely populated island, but the government has kept the idea on the back burner as the technology’s continued to evolve.

Read more: Business Times (hydrogen strategy context), World Nuclear News (international partnerships)

Robot Buses Hit the Road

The first of six driverless buses came to Singapore shores earlier this month and will start carrying passengers on two routes from in second half of the year, running alongside regular buses in a planned three-year trial. The 16-seat vehicles, made by Chinese firms BYD and Zhidao Network Technology with software from MKX Technologies, include wheelchair space and “360-degree sensor coverage.” One route loops Marina Bay and Shenton Way; the other covers the one-north area around Buona Vista.

Read more: Business Times

Rice Media Sold After Running Out of Steam

Rice Media, an independent outlet known for long-form culture stories since 2016, has been acquired by social media agency Hustle Studios after laying off five staff late last year. Founder Mark Tan, a former lawyer, said he initially wanted to just shut the site down, but the sale will now let him settle debts and pay severance. He declined to reveal the price. The publication once pulled 500,000 monthly visitors and expanded to Thailand, but that audience never translated into a lasting business model.

Read more: Yahoo News SG

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Gas Lifeline Under Qatar's Rubble

Iranian missiles hit Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG facility on March 18, and the timeline to rebuild the thing is being pegged at three to five years. This is, of course, bad news for the world's largest gas export plant, which supplied roughly 43 percent of LNG imports last year. Natural gas generates 95 percent of Singaporean electricity, and Minister Tan See Leng said Friday the government hasn't tapped its months-long stockpile yet as it is keeping "dry powder" ready for when (he did not say “if”) things get worse. The immediate test is on the shoulders of GasCo, the centralized gas buyer that was set up in 2025 after the last energy crisis sent retail electricity providers running for the exits. Shell and QatarEnergy have already declared force majeure on Qatar-origin volumes, and with oil reaching as high as $119.50 a barrel, the cost pressures are mounting everywhere. PM Wong promised more support if the crisis escalates.

Read more: CNA (stockpile duration), Business Times (GasCo stress test), Business Times (conservation urgency), The Independent Singapore ($175 oil warning), Business Times (food price spillover)

Three Days, Three Outages, Zero Bars

Singtel's network collapsed for three days in a row starting on March 16, knocking 600,000 customers offline and freezing payments, ride-hailing, and food delivery. A mechanical fault at a network facility caused the initial eight-hour blackout; a software bug from a planned upgrade and a traffic jump during reconfigurations extended the misery through day three. IMDA opened an investigation and promised consequences. Note the gap between Singtel's promises that service was restored on the evening of March 16 and complaint from customers who were still unable to connect hours later.

Read more: Business Times

Changi Cashes In as Flyers Dodge the Middle East

Corporate travelers fleeing shuttered Gulf hubs have handed Changi a bonus. Australia-Europe flight bookings through the airport were up 38% in the first half of March. Flight Centre Travel Group tracked the shift between March 2 and 15, comparing volumes to the two weeks earlier. The rerouting follows the widening Middle East conflict that spread to Gulf states after the US-Israel strike on Iran, closing major transit points. FCM Travel Asia flagged the corporate rerouting as a pattern that’s likely to stick, but it also noted that most Europe-Australia connections already ran through Asian hubs rather than the Middle East. Hong Kong is reportedly getting similar overflow traffic.

Read more: Business Times

Advertisement:

Tokyo Chooses Its ASEAN Gateway

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Japanese PM Sanae Takauchi upgraded the label on their bilateral ties to a “strategic partnership” on Wednesday, during the anniversary of 60 years of diplomatic relations. They promised new or renewed cooperation on AI, quantum computing, semiconductors, and defense. The deal includes research on next-generation chips and AI governance, as well as a new ICT policy talk exchanges. Wong presented the upgrade as being two like-minded partners doubling down on free trade and rules-based order against a backdrop of "profound changes," and Takaichi talked up her government's 10th anniversary reboot of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific initiative. This is Japan's first strategic partnership in Southeast Asia.

Read more: Business Times (security cooperation emphasis), Business Times (cybersecurity labeling scheme), Business Times (historical company examples), Mofa Go (FOIP strategy connection)

Old Money, Safe Harbor

Hongkong Land, the property arm of Hong Kong's Jardine Matheson group, has paid SGD 541 million cash for a stake in Suntec REIT, buying into commercial real estate as geopolitical jitters push institutional capital toward anything that looks like a haven. The stake, picked up from Warburg Pincus-backed ESR Group, gives the group exposure to prime CBD assets including one-third stakes in Marina Bay Financial Centre and One Raffles Quay, properties it already partly owns through a separate fund. Investment volumes in local offices, hotels and retail were up 18% year-on-year to SGD 33.9 billion in 2025, the highest in eight years, as lower rates and safe-haven demand came together. Hongkong Land's CFO told The Business Times the group has recycled 90% of a $4 billion target and cut net debt by 30%, leaving plenty of room to put capital to work.

Read more: VnExpress

Sands Doubles Down on the Bay

Las Vegas Sands has given Woh Hup a multi-billion-dollar contract to build its US$8 billion Marina Bay resort, with 5,000 workers already on-site around the clock pushing for a 2030 finish. The 55-storey tower will feature 570 luxury suites, a 15,000-seat arena, and a(nother) casino next door to the existing Marina Bay Sands, which, in 2025, contributed S$2.64 billion in local business spending and an estimated 1.2 per cent of GDP.

Read more: Business Times

Banks Benched in 1MDB Endgame

The High Court told Standard Chartered and BSI Bank they have no standing to intervene in winding-up proceedings for four offshore companies tied to fugitive financier Jho Low. The companies are being liquidated in the British Virgin Islands as part of efforts to recover funds that were allegedly misappropriated from 1MDB, and want to wind up locally so liquidators can follow up on claims against the banks. At stake are US$150 million in transfers from one account to former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, plus US$53.4 million and US$77 million that was routed to vendors for luxury purchases linked to his wife, Rosmah Mansor. The banks argued they should be allowed to participate as contingent creditors, but the court disagreed.

Read more: Business Times

Gatekeepers Who Opened Wide

The central bank has barred two relationship managers who helped clients launder money through a S$3 billion scandal that broke in 2023. Wang Qiming, formerly at Citibank, has been banned from the financial industry for 16 years after convictions on forgery, laundering and obstruction charges that earned him 24 months in prison. Liu Kai, ex-Julius Baer, got seven years out for using a forged tax document to help onboard a client who later went to jail. The 2023 bust netted 10 Fujian nationals with wealth from illegal Chinese gambling and lending operations, and turned up more than S$370 million spread across over a dozen banks. The scandal has caused compliance officers everywhere on the island headaches ever since.

Read more: Business Times

Wage Floor Hits the Kitchen

The three-year Progressive Wage Model schedule will push F&B operators to raise salaries for resident workers by up to 15 percent, and ripple effects are expected well beyond the legally required minimums. Boon Tong Kee's roughly 100 affected employees will see bumps that include overtime pay; Dian Xiao Er expects "substantial" costs to be incurred in all outlets. Even operators that have already been paying above the floor are worried because rising industry benchmarks are sure to reset expectations and put new pressure on margins. The response playbook is expected to the be old formula of higher menu prices, more automation in central kitchens, and some offshoring of back-office functions. Asme's president pointed out that firms that don’t need foreign manpower can technically pay below the new minimums, but that doesn’t really work when locals won't stick around for F&B careers and blue-collar job-hopping is rampant.

Read more: Business Times

Half These Jobs Didn't Exist

Nearly half of job openings in 2025 were newly created roles, hitting 49.3 percent as tech and professional services kept expanding. Information and communications were front of the pack with 74.2 percent of vacancies being brand-new positions, followed by professional services at 58.2 percent. The change is shows up in hiring patterns also, as roughly four-fifths of vacancies now do not use academic credentials as the primary filter. Employers want software developers, data scientists, and systems analysts who can work with AI tools, though they're finding it harder to fill specialized PMET roles. The share of those jobs that has been left vacant for at least six months is now up to 16 percent from 14.4 percent the year before. The ratio of openings to job seekers is steady at 1.58, a tightness that MOM's director for manpower research and statistics says is as much due to skills mismatch as it is a shortage of willing applicants.

Read more: Business Times (retrenchment rates), Business Times (skills mismatch data), VnExpress (remote work surge)

The Little Red Dot Looks Up

A new National Space Agency will get down to business on April 1 to oversee more than 30 satellites, come up with space legislation, and set Singapore up as a hub in a sector that should be worth $1.8 trillion globally by 2035. The government already runs a $210 million program backing companies like Zero-Error Systems, an NTU spin-off making radiation-hardened chips for more than 50 satellite makers worldwide. The workforce currently numbers about 2,000 people in 70 “space” firms, modest numbers that the agency is betting it can grow by leaning on existing aerospace, microelectronics, and engineering knowhow. Whether that's enough to matter alongside the US and China is another question, but few countries as small as Singapore have ever bothered to try.

Read more: Straits Times (structure), Straits Times (projections)

No Beans About It

Foodtech startup Prefer is building a pilot factory to produce bean-free (!?) coffee using fermented food waste, with 500 tonnes of (annual) capacity expected by Q3. Vietnamese robusta prices hit US$5,642 per tonne in the 2024/2025 marketing year, which is a crushing 143 percent increase from the previous term. Prefer's founders met at Entrepreneur First in 2022 and decided fermentation could recreate flavours that climate shocks keep making scarcer and pricier. We’ll see.

Read more: Business Times

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Three-Dollar Petrol and Nowhere to Hide

Pump prices crossed S$3.45 per litre on March 13, breaking records set during the Ukraine crisis four years ago, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off a quarter of seaborne oil. Caltex now charges 57 cents more than it did on February 28, the day the US and Israel struck Iran. Filling a standard 50-litre sedan tank now costs an extra S$28.50 before discounts. But petrol is just the opening act. Natural gas powers 95 per cent of domestic electricity, and LNG prices are climbing fast enough that Energy Minister Tan See Leng told households to brace for higher bills in the coming months. About half the gas supply arrives by pipeline from the region and sits outside the conflict zone, but the other half comes as LNG from a global market now scrambling to replace Middle Eastern cargoes.

Read more: Straits Times (supply security), Straits Times, Business Times, Business Times, Business Times (electricity warning, rebates)

MAS Dusts Off the Tightening Lever

The oil price jump behind those record pump prices is also forcing the Monetary Authority of Singapore's hand. Economists are betting MAS will steepen the S$NEER policy band slope at its April review, the first tightening move since October 2022. Several analysts now expect a 50 basis point adjustment, a reversal from the flat slope that’s wiheld for more than three years. The policy statement will drop on or before April 14. Oil-fuelled inflation is going to reset borrowing costs and capital flows across Southeast Asia, where central banks watch Singapore's monetary moves closely.

Read more: Business Times

0.87 Babies and a 'Radical Reset'

Singapore's fertility rate sank to 0.87 in 2025, down from 0.97 the year before, with resident births falling 11 percent to roughly 27,500, the lowest on record. Deputy PM Gan Kim Yong warned the citizen population could start shrinking by the early 2040s without action, calling family support a "top priority" and promising a government work group for a "radical societal reset." That likely means new policy on workplace flexibility, housing, and immigration, though couples interviewed said that time pressures and workplace culture are the real deal-breakers. One 31-year-old business consultant and his nurse wife decided one child is enough after realizing employers "do not benefit from giving their employees more time with their families."

Read more: Straits Times

Advertisement:

A Billion Buys Users, Not Builders

Singapore's S$1 billion AI push risks minting certified users when what the country really needs is builders, according to Leslie Teo, a senior director at AI Singapore. The problem will become more obvious as companies start to discover that junior employees are cheap but AI is cheaper, and start cutting early-career hiring accordingly. Fresh graduate employment fell to 74.4 per cent in 2025 from 79.4 per cent in 2024, and almost a quarter of job postings on (job site) Indeed now mention artificial intelligence, nearly double the 12 per cent seen a year ago. Teo argues the government will need to treat early-career training as a public good. The national SkillsFuture programme attracted 606,000 participants in 2025, but Teo says it moves too slowly for a field where "what you know today and what you know tomorrow can dramatically be opposite each other."

Read more: Business Times, Business Times (AI job postings)

Tokyo Ties Go Low-Carbon

Cross-border electricity, hydrogen, nuclear, LNG, offshore wind - that's the scope of an energy framework signed Sunday between Japan and Singapore. Japan is and Singapore's are both each-other’s fourth-largest source of FDI. The new deal will commit both countries to policy exchanges, business facilitation support, financial cooperation, and regulatory harmonization in seven low-carbon technologies. More than 5,300 Japanese companies already operate in Singapore, many as regional headquarters, and Singapore firms like Seatrium and Sembcorp are working on energy projects in Japan.

Read more: CNA

The Regulator That Other Regulators Copy

The Health Sciences Authority is now the first medical device watchdog in the world to hit WHO's top maturity rating, a designation that confirms its oversight system matches the standards needed to keep devices safe through post-market surveillance. The ML4 status is less valuable as a trophy than it is as a calling card. Malaysia's reliance programme has already fast-tracked at least 15 HSA-approved products since a pilot launched in September 2025. HSA is angling for full membership in the Medical Device Single Audit Program, a club run by regulators in the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and Brazil that lets manufacturers pass one audit instead of five. HSA plans to apply in the second half of 2026. About 200 medtech makers already operate in Singapore.

Read more: WHO Int (WHO ML4 announcement), Business Times, Business Times

1MDB Paper Trail Hits a Dead End

The Court of Appeal shut down foreign liquidators trying to sue Standard Chartered and BSI Bank over (allegedly) laundered 1MDB funds, deciding that cross-border insolvency laws can't be stretched back to cover transactions that predate the legislation. Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon said Parliament inserted the restriction precisely to prevent such retroactive claims, and said that the liquidators' workaround argument was "built on a false premise." The liquidators, representing two British Virgin Islands shell companies, wanted the banks to be liable for their role in moving misappropriated money through Singapore.

Read more: Business Times

SG Top of the Class, Again

NUS and NTU grabbed the top two spots in the first-ever Times Higher Education Southeast Asia university ranking. Seven Malaysian universities filled out most of the top 10. Universiti Teknologi Petronas led the Malaysian pack in third place, and Universiti Brunei Darussalam snuck into seventh as the only non-Singapore, non-Malaysia institution in the top tier. Thailand's Chulalongkorn University and Vietnam's UEH University landed in the top 15 but missed the top 10. Indonesia's top entry, the University of Indonesia, came in at 22nd. The ranking covers 195 institutions and uses the same methodology as THE's global tables.

Read more: Msn

Fake Times, Real Charges

Three former Singapore Underwater Federation coaches are looking at up to a decade in prison because they allegedly forging fin-swimming results to get athletes into the 2023 SEA Games (Cambodia). Police say the coaches faked times from a Malaysian competition that the women's relay team never even bothered to show up for, and then used those results to appeal for more slots. The bold gambit worked (at the time), as six athletes got sent to Cambodia, where they finished last.

Read more: Swimswam

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Hormuz Choke Fires Up Fuel Prices

High-sulfur fuel oil prices at the bunkering hub jumped more than 40% this week as the Iran war choked tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, stranding Middle Eastern supplies bound for Asia. The price of low-sulfur fuel oil has soared almost a third since the war began, with traders scrambling for cargoes before local inventories are drawn down. The Energy Market Authority says that electricity prices could go up if global gas prices stay high, a concern given Singapore’s 95% dependence on imported natural gas for power generation. About 42.5% of LNG imports in 2025 arrived from Qatar, shipped through the now-stalled strait. Gas prices have already risen by as much as half in European and Asian markets after QatarEnergy shut down production after drone attacks. "Everyone is struggling to find oil for the second half of March," one trader told Reuters. "Tankers are too expensive and arbitrage is closed."

Read more: CNA, Oilprice (fuel price spikes), Business Times (regulator price warnings), The Independent Singapore (youth job impacts), Business Times

Two Cities, One Gilded Prize

Hong Kong and Singapore are squaring off to become the world's foremost gold trading hub, with both cities courting the same Wall Street titans as precious metal prices continue to climb on geopolitical jitters. The central bank confirmed it's been working with major market players since last year to support more local gold trading, declining to deny reports that it's wooing JP Morgan and UBS. Hong Kong, which featured the push in last month's budget, thinks that it holds the stronger hand, however. Hong Kong’s direct access to mainland China's market gives it an edge that Singapore can't match. The MAS says it'll share details on its plans "in due course."

Read more: South China Morning Post

Scam Camps to Superyachts

Authorities have seized or frozen more than half a billion Singapore dollars in assets tied to Chen Zhi's Prince Holding Group, the transnational scam syndicate that ran forced-labor compounds in Cambodia before the US and UK nailed it with sanctions last October. The haul includes properties, luxury cars, watches, cash, and securities accounts, with vehicles registered to SRS Auto, a car-leasing firm whose owner, Tan Yew Kiat, also founded local fashion label bYSI. Tan was arrested in November on money laundering charges; two other Singaporeans followed, including the captain of Chen's superyacht Nonni II. A warrant has been issued for Karen Chen, 43, who allegedly instigated someone to falsify accounts and left the country before the October probe began. She's believed to be in Cambodia.

Read more: Business Times

Advertisement:

The Arbitrator Who Knew Too Much

A whistleblower has tipped off the UK's Bar Standards Board about a British KC who sat on a $490 million arbitration panel at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, according to a report by Eureporter. The barrister was one of three arbitrators considering a claim by BVI-registered Kleros Capital Partners against India's Tata Power. Visa records unearthed by Russian journalists allegedly show the KC visited Moscow on trips sponsored by a friendship society chaired by Kleros' CEO, a link that SIAC's ethical code would have required the arbitrator to disclose. Tata is appealing at the Singapore International Commercial Court.

Read more: Eureporter

MHA to Meta: Don't Even Hate-Share It

The Ministry of Home Affairs hit Meta with five Disabling Directions under the Online Criminal Harms Act, forcing the platform to block posts showing a man putting his foot on the Quran aboard a public bus. Police are investigating under the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act. The ministry warned that even a reposting in condemnation of the video is a perpetuation of the offense, and is telling the public to report content to authorities rather than share it themselves.

Read more: CNA, Malaymail

Phantom Workers, Real Fines

The Manpower Ministry caught about 100 employers gaming foreign worker quotas through fake CPF contributions between 2024 and 2025. The schemes involved paying into accounts for locals who never showed up, artificially boosting hiring entitlements. Penalties will be up to S$20,000 for every fraudulent work pass application, AND a ban on future hiring of foreign workers. The ministry says it's using both complaints and surprise site checks to find the cheats.

Read more: Business Times

Greener Balance Sheets, Sharper Boards

MAS is reviewing its corporate governance rules to push boards harder on value creation and investor engagement. It is also publishing environmental risk management guidelines for banks, insurers and asset managers that will come into effect in September 2027. The governance review, run with SGX and the Corporate Governance Advisory Committee, wants boards to explain more clearly how they're creating shareholder value and to tighten up on corporate culture, board effectiveness and risk management. The climate rules, an expansion of guidance previously shared in 2020, now expect financial institutions to assess physical and transition risks, work with customers on their exposures, and keep up with measurement methods as they evolve.

Read more: Business Times (code changes), Business Times (environmental guidelines)

Point-Eight-Seven and Falling

Lee Kuan Yew gave up on the problem back in 2012, saying even a baby bonus worth two years of the average wage wouldn't move the needle. The fertility numbers have only gotten worse. The rate came down to a measly 0.87 last year, down from 0.97 in 2024. The numbers mean that 100 residents today are expected to produce just 44 children and 19 grandchildren if the trend holds. Deputy PM Gan Kim Yong says it’s an existential issue and warned the citizen population could start shrinking by the early 2040s. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the math gets uglier when you account of the fact that seniors will jump from about a fifth of the population now to almost a third by 2050; the working-age share is expected to start dropping in the mid-2030s. Not everyone's convinced the sky is falling, though. Veteran newspaper editor Han Fook Kwang, for example, is on record saying that a smaller population doesn't guarantee an economic catastrophe.

Read more: CNA, Straits Times

Silicon Valley Pass Gets an Upgrade

A new AI and Technology track under the One Pass visa will come into play in January 2027 to replace the three-year-old Tech.Pass scheme. The new visa comes with revised terms that have been designed to lure the world's top digital talent. Recognizing that elite AI engineers get paid in stock options as much as salary, the new track lets applicants meet the S$30,000 monthly income threshold through a mix of cash and equity compensation. Eligibility requires at least five years in senior leadership or specialized technical roles at sizable tech firms or venture capital shops. Manpower Minister Tan See Leng thinks it will be a way to attract what he called "movers and shakers, rainmakers and network brokers" who can spin off multiple enterprises. Having said that, however, the ministry is tempering expectations early by saying that it expects low application numbers, given the high bar.

Read more: Business Times (cabin crew expansion), Business Times

Property Giants Eat China Losses, Stay Anyway

Evergrande has been liquidated, once-solid Vanke is drowning in debt, and recent earnings from the city-state's biggest real estate firms show losses on their mainland holdings as the slump grinds through its sixth year since Beijing laid down the "three red lines" lending caps in 2020. Singapore was China's largest property buyer as of 2018, pouring in 34.65 billion yuan (just under US$5 billion) in that year alone. Beijing's recent policy support and market size mean most aren't pulling back entirely, but the game is shifting from a play of wide exposure to one of cherry-picking tier-one logistics and retail assets in cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen and steering clear of the residential glut that’s hamstrung domestic developers.

Read more: South China Morning Post

Six EV Fires

Six EV fires were recorded in 2025, and half of them were traced back to high-voltage battery failures, up from a single incident in 2024. The Civil Defence Force chalked the rest up to other electrical faults, including a dashboard component and the rear compactor of an electric waste truck. EVs are 7.4% of the national fleet; fully electric models accounted for 45% of new car registrations last year, the first time that EVs topped the list. Authorities are studying whether EVs and plug-in hybrids should carry different and distinct license plates so first responders know which burning car might electrocute them.

Read more: VnExpress

Diplomas in Hand, Offers Absent

Fresh graduates are finding 2025 a hard sell, with full-time placement dropping five points to below 75 percent as median pay has remained flat at S$4,500 monthly. The share of graduates that is hunting unsuccessfully is up to 8.5 percent, and more of them have taken on part-time gigs as outward-facing sectors like ICT have pulled back on hiring. Universities say the problem is cautious employers and slower churn post-pandemic.

Read more: Business Times

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Tehran Burns, Asia Braces

Israel and the United States together attacked Iran on February 28, triggering retaliatory strikes across the Middle East and causing ripple effects throughout Southeast Asia. Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong, speaking shortly after the strikes began at a Chinese New Year dinner, warned that energy prices are going to rise and the inevitable uncertainty will put a damper on trade and investment across the region. "You can see when the war will start," he told residents. "It is very hard to tell how the war will end." For a small, open economy that grew 5 percent last year on the back of stable global trade, the shocks of Middle East war and US protectionism are going to hit hard. The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority stepped up checks on arriving travelers, cargo, and conveyances at all land, air, and sea checkpoints the same day; they’re telling travelers to expect delays.

Read more: Straits Times, CNA (tariff rate increase), CNA (checkpoint security measures), AsiaOne (Supreme Court ruling)

One Baby Per Two Women

The total fertility rate hit a record low of 0.87 in 2025, down from 0.97 in 2024 and 1.24 a decade ago, Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong told parliament on Feb 26. Chinese births fell 15 percent year-on-year, partly a pullback after 2024's Dragon Year bump, but the trend has Gan calling it an "existential challenge." One in five citizens is at least 65 years old, (it was one in eight ten years ago), and without action the citizen count will start shrinking by the early 2040s. Singapore’s small size makes the country "exceptionally sensitive" to demographic shifts, Gan said, and over time there will simply be fewer women of childbearing age.

Read more: Business Times

Seoul Comes Calling Again

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung arrived yesterday for a three-day state visit, his second summit with PM Lawrence Wong in four months since the pair upgraded ties to a strategic partnership during Wong's trip to South Korea in November. Monday's agenda will be on AI, nuclear energy, and defense cooperation, with MoUs planned for trade, energy security, and tech. Lee will meet President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and attend AI Connect, a business forum for AI entrepreneurs from both countries. Korea is clearly betting on the city-state as its Southeast Asian anchor for next-generation industries; Wong made his first official trip to Seoul as prime minister just four months ago.

Read more: CNA, Straits Times, Korea Times, Yonhap, Chosun

Advertisement:

Chip Boom Lifts the Factory Floor

Factory output was up 16.6% y-o-y in January, ahead of the 12.1% consensus and the sharpest spike since November 2025. Electronics rose 44% for the month, more than doubling December's 19.6% gain. If you strip out the volatile biomedical cluster, industrial production was up almost a quarter over last year. Economists are now expecting full-year GDP growth at 3.6%, up from December's more restrained 2.3% forecast. The consensus view is that global AI infrastructure spending, with tech firms expected to lift CAPEX by 30%, will keep the momentum going through at least mid-year.

Read more: Business Times (January data), Business Times (MAS policy outlook)

Last Orders for Deliveroo

DoorDash is pulling the plug on Deliveroo after a decade, and service is coming to an end on March 4. The exit comes after what the parent company said was a "multi-month review" focused on markets with the clearest path to scale, though it insists the decision isn't about business performance. That framing sits awkwardly with Deliveroo's single-digit market share since late 2022. Deliveroo is also closing shop in Qatar, Japan and Uzbekistan as DoorDash narrows its geographic footprint. The pullout leaves Grab and foodpanda to split the local delivery market, a duopoly that bears watching even if prices aren't likely to move much in the short term.

Read more: Business Times

Banks Open the Taps

Local companies paid out a record $18.7 billion in dividends last year, up 19.1% from 2024, with banks driving most of the increase through special payouts. DBS and other lenders handed shareholders extra cash on top of their regular dividends, reflecting what Capital Group calls "strong trading and capital positions." The boost helped offset Singapore Airlines' dividend cut and pushed dividend growth well above the 6% global average. Core growth was just 2.1%, meaning most of the jump came from those one-time bank bonuses, but the headline number was still the highest payout since Capital Group started tracking in 2015.

Read more: Business Times

Zero Down, All Risk

Car dealers are hawking S$0 upfront financing on Instagram and Facebook, getting around loan-to-value limits through inflated invoices and unregulated in-house loans. Outstanding motor vehicle loans are now sitting at a 12-year high of S$12.4 billion. One dealer promised 100% guaranteed approval without any cash down. Neither MAS nor the dealers' association has indicated any appetite for a crackdown (yet). INSEAD's Ben Charoenwong is blunt about the invoice inflation scheme, saying "[It’s] not a creative financing structure. That's deception."

Read more: Business Times

DBS Turns the Screws on Fintech Rivals

DBS will jack up the fees it charges fintech firms for custodian services starting in April, hitting payment service providers with higher costs for the privilege of holding customer funds in virtual accounts. The Payments Services Act requires the biggest payment institutions to keep client money in segregated accounts, which means most fintech firms need a custodian bank whether they like it or not. The higher costs are coming just as local payment startups are finishing years of expensive regulatory compliance, so… not ideal, but could be worse.

Read more: Business Times

Uncle Sam's Eyes in the Sky

Four P-8A Poseidons are headed to Singapore after Washington cleared the sale in January, replacing a fleet of Fokker 50s that have been on patrol for more than three decades. The value of the deal was not disclosed. The Poseidons come with advanced radar, acoustic processing, electro-optical sensors and anti-submarine weaponry, in addition to the endurance to loiter over the Malacca Strait and South China Sea for extended periods. The aircraft will share standards and doctrine with the U.S., Australia and the UK, all of which already fly the platform. Singapore’s position at the choke point where the Malacca Strait meets the South China Sea makes persistent maritime surveillance less of a luxury and more of an existential need.

Read more: Indo-Pacific Defense Forum

Training Wheels Go Begging

Applications for the GRIT graduate traineeship program have dropped 90% since its October launch, with about half of the 800 slots still empty. Manpower Minister Tan See Leng is trying to portray the decline as good news, saying graduates are landing full-time jobs instead, though none of the first batch who started in December have converted to permanent roles yet.

Read more: Business Times

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Fifteen Percent and Counting

Singapore will likely face a new 15% US tariff starting February 24, up from the 10% baseline that was put in place after President Trump invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 following a Supreme Court ruling that struck down his earlier tariff program. Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong told reporters Sunday the government is trying to get clarity from Washington on implementation details and potential refund processes, but also told businesses to prepare for "a very unpredictable and uncertain operating environment." Section 122 allows temporary tariffs up to 15% for 150 days to address balance-of-payments deficits, though the US actually ran a $3.6 billion goods trade surplus with the city-state in 2025, up from $1.9 billion the year before. The 150-day clock creates new uncertainty, too, however. Trump could try to get congressional approval to extend the tariffs, let them lapse, or pivot to another legal mechanism entirely. Gan said the government is ready to introduce support measures if needed, and said that if tariffs are going to apply across the board, relative competitiveness wouldn't shift, leaving room for Singapore to keep doing business with the US.

Read more: CNA (trade surplus figures), Straits Times (tariff refund process), The Star (Supreme Court ruling), AsiaOne (Section 122 details), Business Times (competitiveness remains intact)

Chips on Cloud and Cargo

PM Lawrence Wong's S$154.7 billion budget lays out where the money is going to flow in 2026: AI infrastructure, air connectivity, and ASEAN integration. The spending package is making the city's access to four billion people within a seven-hour flight radius central. Changi currently handles 7,000 weekly flights to 100 countries and the port move ~45 million containers last year. The main initiatives include a Digital Connectivity Blueprint that will bank on low-earth-orbit satellites and subsea cables, in addition to support for smaller companies that are trying to crack export markets. The budget doubles down on the advantages that have helped build the nation since independence - connectivity and people, betting that both are still going to pay off when neighbors are unable to rely on the old supply chains.

Read more: Eurasiareview

Small Cars, Big Bills

Category A COE premiums hit a high of S$106,501 in the latest bidding round, nudging past Category B's S$105,001 for the first time since the second round of bidding in March 2020. The flip comes after the government's decision to slash PARF rebates by 45 percent and cap them at S$30,000, down from S$60,000, for cars registered from February 20. The new rules hit pricier vehicles hardest since rebate size ties directly to the amount of tax paid, which depends on vehicle value. Cheaper Chinese EVs are cleaning up in Category A, where the power ceiling sits at 110 kW for electric vehicles. Category B buyers, typically less price-sensitive, seem to be getting antsy about residual values.

Read more: Business Times

Advertisement:

Changi Charges for Cleaner Skies

Passengers flying out of Changi from October 2026 will pay a lasting aviation fuel levy ranging from S$1 for short economy hops to S$41.60 for premium long-haul seats. The surcharge, which will apply to tickets bought after April 1, funds the purchase of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) made from used cooking oil and agricultural waste that is said to reduce emissions by up to 80%. Economy flyers heading to Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok will pay a dollar; first or business class passengers bound for New York or London pay S$31.20 in business, S$41.60 in the top cabin. Changi is the first major Asian hub to mandate a SAF surcharge.

Read more: Travel and Tour World

Changi Drops the Thermometer

Temperature screening for arrivals from India ends Monday, and the change is expected to shave eight minutes off processing times at Changi and maritime checkpoints. The government used “zero local cases” and the absence of human-to-human transmission in the current Bangladeshi cluster to support the decision. IndiGo and Singapore Airlines run over 110 weekly flights on the corridor, and airport retail analysts are quietly penciling in a 3 to 5% bump in airside spending as queuing pressure eases into Easter and Songkran peaks.

Read more: Visahq, Meyka

DBS Joins the 12-Hour Queue

Added a new payee to your DBS account lately? Starting March 7, you'll wait 12 hours before you can move your money. The delay matches moves OCBC made back in 2022 and UOB rolled out in December 2024, completing a sweep of all three major banks. The trigger is the more than S$450 million lost to scams in the first half of 2025, with phishing making up nearly a fifth of cases. DBS already holds or blocks transactions that are worth more than 50 percent of balances for accounts with S$50,000 or more, a safeguard introduced last year. Instant payee additions are now a relic; alerts will ping registered contacts during the wait, giving you a window to flag anything fishy before the transfer clears.

Read more: CNA

The Family Behind the Curtain

OCBC handed the group CEO title to outsider Tan Teck Long, but the Lee family's 28 per cent stake will keep the reins firmly in hand through an unusual power structure. The board's executive committee, which oversees business operations, strategy, and investment decisions, is chaired not by the CEO or board chairman but by Lee Tih Shih, grandson of founder Lee Kong Chian. That's a different setup from DBS and UOB, where board chairmen run their executive committees. The family has blocked moves it deemed too costly, reportedly including an S$2 billion headquarters revamp in 2024 and an attempt to privatise Great Eastern insurance. Around half the family's US$38 billion fortune sits in OCBC holdings, which helps explain their eagerness to keep a tight grip.

Read more: Business Times

AI-Ready? One in Five, Maybe

Only one in five professionals in Singapore and Malaysia can actually work with AI tools, despite more than 70% claiming advanced digital literacy, according to a recent assessment. The gap sits in decision-making and computational thinking, where roughly 56% and 42% respectively rate themselves at basic levels, the exact skills needed to supervise AI outputs and get the technology working in real workflows. Epitome's CEO Kevin Chan says that tools are scaling faster than readiness, and two-thirds of organizations in Singapore remain stuck on basic AI use cases. Professionals in the Philippines and Vietnam are moving into higher-value technical roles, competing directly for the same jobs that digital-but-not-AI-ready workers in Singapore and Malaysia thought they owned.

Read more: Manila Times

Print, Gift, Burn, Repeat

Every Chinese New Year, the Monetary Authority of Singapore pumps 80 million to 90 million fresh banknotes into circulation for red packets, most of which get deposited right back into banks within weeks and end up incinerated. The cycle produces carbon emissions equivalent to powering 1,600 four-room HDB flats for a year, making currency operations one of MAS's top emissions sources. The central bank has been pushing "fit notes," clean used bills with minor fold lines, as a greener alternative, and the campaign is gaining traction: fit-note use rose 38% to 16.2 million this CNY, saving an estimated 408 tonnes of CO2. MAS doesn't track what happens to new notes once they're returned, so the exact burn count stays a mystery it would rather not talk about.

Read more: Business Times

Two Contractors Split S$735 Million Under Sungei Kadut

Woh Hup Engineering snagged S$285 million to build the Downtown Line's DE1 station along Sungei Kadut Avenue, while a Samwoh-China Communications Construction joint venture took the bigger slice at S$450 million for the NS6/DE2 interchange between Yew Tee and Kranji. Construction will begin Q2 2026. China Communications now holds contracts on four separate MRT lines plus the JB-Singapore RTS link, the largest infrastructure footprint of any single foreign contractor.

Read more: Business Times

Pull&Bear Out

Pull&Bear closed its last Singapore store on February 22, leaving Zara VivoCity to handle returns as parent Inditex reduces its physical footprint across Asia-Pacific. Inditex is pruning underperforming outlets and pushing traffic online; Zara VivoCity handles after-sales service in one flagship location. Mall landlords now have another mid-tier fashion vacancy to fill with beauty, sportswear, or something else to try and get people (and their wallets) through the door twice a month.

Read more: Meyka

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.

Subscribe now

Chips Pick Up America's Slack

Non-oil domestic exports climbed 9.3% in January, falling short of the 12.5% forecast, as integrated circuits jumped 80.5% on AI demand and a weak base year. Electronics rose 56.1% while non-electronics slipped 3%, dragged by specialised machinery and petrochemicals. The headline number masks a sharp geographic shift: exports to the US collapsed 45.3%, deepening December's 36.3% slide, while the EU reversed course with 43.7% growth after contracting 5.4% the month before. Thailand swung to 39.3% growth. Two of the top 10 markets contracted; the other eight posted gains, suggesting the trade flows are rebalancing faster than the top-line figure lets on.

Read more: Business Times, Trading View

Lawyering Up for the AI Age

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced in his 2026 Budget speech on Feb 12 that white-collar professionals will get AI training through an expanded TechSkills Accelerator programme, starting with lawyers and accountants before rolling out to other fields. Wong will chair a new National AI Council overseeing four "AI missions" targeting advanced manufacturing, connectivity, finance and healthcare. The choice of lawyers and accountants as guinea pigs isn't random: both professions are drowning in text-heavy work where AI already excels at document review, case summaries and compliance checks, while facing chronic talent shortages in accounting and high attrition in law. The open question: whether training accountants to prompt-craft solves manpower crunches or just automates their junior staff.

Read more: CNA, Business Times

Vouchers Forever

The 2026 budget is going to hand every household S$500 in CDC vouchers plus S$200 to S$400 cash payments, despite 5% GDP growth in 2025 and median household incomes jumping 6.8% in real terms. The handouts started in June 2020 as pandemic relief for lower-income families, were expanded to all households in 2021 starting at S$100, and ballooned to S$800 per household by 2025. Nearly 89% of voucher spending goes to food and daily essentials at more than 24,000 participating merchants, up from about 10,000 when the scheme launched. What began as emergency relief at S$100 a pop now lands at S$500 in a boom year, and shows no sign of sunsetting.

Read more: CNA

Advertisement:

Gold Bars Sold Out, Appointments Only

Good luck walking into a UOB branch for gold this Friday , the bank is turning away walk-ins and requiring appointments. UOB's physical gold sales jumped 60% in 2025, and most of its bullion is now gone: 20 of 27 gold bar types are sold out, with all coins depleted. Gold crossed S$5,500 per ounce in late January before settling around S$5,022, up roughly 70% year-on-year, as a weakening dollar and geopolitical jitters sent retail investors scrambling for physical metal. A 1kg bar at UOB now costs S$206,115. The bank's paper gold accounts also saw demand rise 48%, but clearly nothing satisfies quite like holding the real thing when currencies start looking shaky.

Read more: Business Times

The Scammers Got AI Too

Interpol's cybercrime center in Singapore has its hands full with criminal syndicates that now wield the same AI tools as legitimate businesses. Director Neal Jetton, seconded from the US Secret Service, calls the weaponization of AI by cybercriminals "the biggest threat we're seeing," and says the "sheer volume" of attacks keeps rising. Criminals are buying ready-made hacking kits on the Dark Web and using AI to generate flawless phishing emails and deepfake videos of government officials endorsing scam investments. Anyone with a smartphone qualifies as a target.

Read more: Straits Times

BYD Sends Toyota to the Back Seat

BYD just parked itself at the top of the auto market for the first time, moving 11,184 vehicles in 2025 for a 21.2% market share after an 80.6% year-on-year jump. Toyota, king of the hill for years, slipped to second with 7,466 units including Lexus, a 5.2% drop. The government's S$40,000 EV tax break helped push pure electric vehicles to 45.1% of new registrations, and BYD's Atto 3 hoovered up cost-conscious buyers facing astronomical vehicle registration fees.

Read more: Starnewskorea

Car Tax Bill Now Bigger Than Fiji

Owning a car here now generates more revenue than an entire country. The government pulled in S$11.05 billion from vehicle quota premiums and car taxes in the fiscal year ending March 2026, overshooting its own projection by 31% and comfortably eclipsing Fiji's GDP. Quota premiums alone accounted for S$8.66 billion, well above what officials estimated a year ago, as the cost of keeping a car in the city-state hit record highs. Singapore sets strict quotas on new vehicle registrations through a bidding system, and premiums have climbed as supply stays tight and demand refuses to budge. For scale, Fiji's 2025 GDP comes in around S$10.8 billion, meaning a single administrative revenue line from a city of six million now outpaces the total economic output of a Pacific island nation, hotels, sugar, and all.

Read more: Bloomberg

Home Turf Still Holds Half the Chips

More than half of Temasek's S$434 billion portfolio never leaves the city-state. The sovereign wealth fund's local bets include the usual suspects: DBS, which just delivered a 38% dividend bump despite net profit dipping 3% on global minimum tax implementation; Singtel; and ST Engineering. The 20-year total shareholder return lands at 7%, decent but hardly barn-burning for a fund with 13 offices across nine countries. For all the talk of global diversification, 52% of the portfolio remains within the city-state's borders.

Read more: Yahoo Finance SG

Mickey Mouse Drops Anchor

Disney Cruise Line is parking its largest ship in Singapore starting April 30, betting that Southeast Asian families will happily spend four nights at sea with zero port stops. The Disney Adventure begins year-round sailings from Marina Bay Cruise Centre, with inside cabins going for $1,002 per person and concierge suites hitting $6,974. It's the first Disney ship homeported outside the United States.

Read more: Travel and Tour World

Red Dot Still Outranks Uncle Sam

The red passport keeps its grip on the top spot in the 2026 Henley Passport Index with visa-free access to 192 destinations; the US sits tenth with 179. Taiwan climbed to 32nd with 135 destinations, while China languishes at 56th, tied with Botswana. Thailand held at 58th with 70 destinations.

Read more: Visiontimes

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back - hit reply and tell us what you think.

Subscribe now

Share Singapore Weekly

If you value Singapore Weekly, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.