Chips Up, Bills Up

Singapore's exports are booming thanks to chips, but electricity bills are set to jump, the Circle Line is finally complete, and the IMDA is still policing dialects.

Jun 22, 2026

Singapore business, finance and trade news, every Monday.

white concrete statue near city buildings during daytime — Photo by Jisun Han on Unsplash

Chips Are Up

Electronics exports nearly doubled year on year in May, pushing NODX growth to 38.4 percent, the fastest clip since December 2003 and well clear of the 30.5 percent economists had figured on. Integrated circuits added S$1.6 billion ($1.2 billion) to the tally, and shipments to Taiwan more than doubled as Singapore becomes more deeply tied into AI supply chains centered on Taipei and Seoul. Maybank has lifted its full-year NODX forecast to 15 percent. The wrinkle is that the MAS quarterly survey that absorbed this data also showed professional forecasters nudging the 2026 growth estimate down to 3.5 percent while pushing median inflation forecasts to 2.3 percent headline and 2.0 percent core, both up from 1.5 percent in March. Headline inflation expectations are now running more than half a point above the March read.

Read more: Business Times (pharma, trade totals), Business Times (economist outlook), Business Times (MAS tightening odds)

Swiss Miss

Singapore is back on top of the 2026 IMD World Competitiveness Ranking, published June 18, displacing Switzerland at the head of a 70-economy table it last led in 2024. The move was driven by a seven-place jump in business efficiency, enough to overtake Switzerland, which slipped two spots to third as US tariffs and a strong franc weighed on investment flows. Hong Kong moved up one place to second, with government efficiency still its calling card.

Read more: Bloomberg (Swiss franc impact), Business Times (Singapore sub-rankings)

Peace Won’t Cut the Power Bill

The Iran ceasefire won’t show up on July power bills, unfortunately. The regulated tariff, currently 29.72 cents per kWh, is set for a 20 to 30 percent increase next quarter because electricity prices are based on fuel costs from April through mid-June, when energy markets were rattled by disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz after February strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure. For a four-room HDB flat, that could mean roughly S$30 (~$22) extra a month on top of an average bill already close to S$88 (~$65). Nearly two-thirds of households pay the regulated rate, and they have no long-term contract to soften the blow. Natural gas is used for 95 percent of Singapore’s electricity generation, and more than half of it comes as LNG from suppliers including the Middle East.

The Circle Finally Closes

Three new MRT stations, Keppel, Cantonment and Prince Edward Road, open July 12 to complete the Circle Line loop that's been incomplete since the line first opened in 2009. The Land Transport Authority estimates station-to-station travel time along the new stretch at roughly two minutes, but the real benefit is found in what can now disappear. A 19-year-old national serviceman's Pasir Panjang to City Hall run drops from 45 minutes to 18; a Clementi student's weekly trip to Bras Basah Complex gets cut from more than an hour to 38 minutes. Fares on affected routes will also fall, because the Public Transport Council calculates costs on the shortest available path, and the shortest path is now a lot shorter.

Chips Are Thirsty

PUB is getting S$12 million ($9 million) to tackle a problem chip fabs and data centres have been sweating over. They are among the most water-intensive sectors in the economy, and both are growing fast. At UMC’s Pasir Ris wafer fab, about 10,000 cubic metres of NEWater move through daily, passing through about 1,000 manufacturing steps before much of it is collected, re-treated, and sent back into the system. The plant recovers nearly 70 percent of the water, about 3.9 million cubic metres a year, or 1,560 Olympic pools. OVHcloud, which pipes chilled water directly to its processors instead of cooling entire server rooms, says the approach can reduce water use by up to 30 percent. The S$85 million ($63 million) R&D envelope, announced June 16 at Singapore International Water Week, is going to come in under the RIE2030 plan.

Read more: CNA (PUB funding), CNA (UMC and OVHcloud water use)

MAS Flags the Exchange Next Door

MAS added Bybit to its investor alert list on June 17, without explanation. The crypto exchange handles more than $20 billion in daily trading and was co-founded by Singapore-based CEO Ben Zhou, who holds passports from Singapore, Vanuatu, and China. Bybit says it has been blocking local IP addresses and does not serve users in Singapore.

Why the Dub?

Filmmakers Eric Khoo and Jack Neo went public on June 19 with a blunt question. If dialect films play freely on streaming, home video, and in-flight entertainment, why do cinemas alone have to enforce a language policy from another era? Their target is the handling of Dear You, a Teochew-language film that received a one-night premiere at Sands Theatre on June 17. The original version will also be shown at festivals and select screenings, and the Mandarin-dubbed cut is getting a general theatrical release. Director Boo Junfeng, who has seen the Teochew version, says the dub reduces the film's authenticity and he won't watch it. Royston Tan plans to drive to Malaysia to watch it as intended. The Infocomm Media Development Authority says the arrangement aligns with the bilingual policy promoting Mandarin as the main language for Chinese Singaporeans.

A Familiar Russian Argument

Vladimir Putin met PM Lawrence Wong in Kazan on the sidelines of a Russia-ASEAN summit to celebrate 35 years of ties. Putin used the meeting to revive an old claim, saying Western sanctions had kept the economic relationship between the two countries from reaching its full potential. The remarks were directed at a government that continues to maintain its own sanctions on Russia over Ukraine. Putin showed up with a delegation of more than a dozen officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov, and Kirill Dmitriev of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. The most recent Russia-Singapore Business Dialogue was held in Singapore in April.

Read more: Kremlin RU (Russian delegation roster), Malay Mail (Singapore sanctions stance)

AI Money Keeps Coming

OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Tencent have all opened up or expanded shop here in the past year, and Plaud, a San Francisco AI notetaker, has committed S$10 million ($7.8 million) to expand local operations. Companies are attracted by Singapore’s political neutrality, world-class universities, and predictable regulatory environment. Less encouraging is a 2026 Gallup finding that only 14 percent of Singapore’s workforce is engaged at work, well below the Southeast Asian average of 25 percent and the global average of 20 percent. The figure has barely moved in three years.

Read more: Straits Times (manager engagement drop), Fortune (OpenAI investment)

Brothers Bet on Unbreakable Math

Lim Meng Liang, 38, spent years solving equations that have no solutions. Now he's turned that uselessness into a feature. Aires Applied Quantum Technology, the startup he founded in 2023 with older brother Ken Lin, a 15-year finance veteran, has raised more than US$2 million (S$2.6 million) from private investors and Enterprise Singapore for LionGuard, a quantum-resistant encryption app built on Diophantine equations. The beta app has more than 100 subscribers at US$388 per user per month including oil and gas, commodities, banking and other sectors, and the brothers are hunting an eight-figure IPO in the US, Singapore or Japan to take it global.

Singapore Weekly

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