Singapore business, finance and trade news, every Monday.
Leaders Condemn Racist Posts After Nepal Floods
Nine Singaporeans are still missing after the August 26 Nepal-Tibet flash floods, but some online posts fixated on ethnicity. "I only see Indian faces here. Skip. Rescue cut," read one; another asked "how to AI" while claiming all "ABNNs" look the same. Senior Minister K. Shanmugam called the comments "shameful, nasty, totally unacceptable" and asked police to investigate. The Ministry of Digital Development and Information asked platforms to pull 14 posts. A second thread of posts were directed toward Temasek CEO Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara (on the grounds of his Indian ethnicity), as he was attacked as likely to favor Air India, which is asking for about $1.5 billion in new money from shareholders including Singapore Airlines. PM Lawrence Wong followed on September 6, warning that unchecked prejudice "can become normalised, deepen mistrust between communities, and pull us apart."
Read more: Straits Times, CNA, Telegraph India, Business Times, Wionews
Singaporeans Detained in Pyramid Sweep
Chinese officials in Guangxi have arrested 52 Singaporeans because they are suspected of being involved in a pyramid scheme. It’s maybe the biggest foreign detention of Singapore citizens ever seen. Recruiters sold newcomers on a "next Shenzhen" pitch built around 2,000-square-foot apartments renting for S$500 ($390) a month and S$2 ($1.55) bowls of wonton noodles, much of it centered around the Nanning Skyfame Asean Maker Town. Foxconn, which once employed 50,000 workers in the city, left town in 2024, leaving developers unable to sell units in nearby towers. One detainee, a public servant in her 30s who arrived in March, told Singapore media she only noticed from her balcony how many of the surrounding buildings looked abandoned after she had already moved in. The Foreign Ministry's Beijing embassy and Guangzhou consulate have each made three welfare visits, and Second Minister Sim Ann has met most of the families.
Read more: Business Times (investment amounts), Business Times (investigation)
F-35 Order Puts Most Jets in Arkansas
This week brought the first public confirmation of the Singapore’s F-35 programme cost. The total price tag will be about $4 billion (S$5.155 billion), and interestingly, the order will split the fleet across the Pacific. All 12 F-35Bs will be permanently based at Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Arkansas, and only eight F-35As will end up at Tengah. So, effectively, 60 percent of the Republic of Singapore Air Force's stealth fighters will be on American soil, where they can trade home-turf numbers for access to US ranges, classified infrastructure and training that the island's airspace can't provide.
Read more: Defence Security Asia
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Economists Raise 2026 Growth Call to 5%
Private-sector economists questioned by the Monetary Authority of Singapore now expect 2026 growth to come in at 5 per cent, up from 3.5 per cent in the previous quarterly survey. The improved sentiment came with a hedge, though, as forty-five per cent of respondents in the September poll thing that MAS will tighten the Singdollar policy band in October. That’s up from 30 per cent three months ago. That still, of course still means that most respondents see no immediate policy change, but it’s interesting to note the trend.
Read more: Business Times
Employers Warmer on 2026, Wallets Shut for 2027
The National Employers Federation polled 320 companies that employ close to 160,000 workers between June and August, and sentiment has brightened. Sixty-five percent expect that they’ll perform “well” through this year, and the share bracing for uncertain prospects fell to 63 percent from 72 percent. That optimism hasn't loosened their purse strings, however. Just over half say they don’t plan to add headcount in 2027, and most of them plan wage freezes or moderation. Small and mid-sized firms, squeezed by weak retail and F&B demand, are doing most of the freezing; larger employers appear to be less likely to be planning wage freezes.
Read more: Business Times
SGX Logs Best IPO Half-Year in a Decade
Singapore Exchange saw just eight IPOs in the first half of 2026 (that’s a fraction of Hong Kong's 85 listings and Malaysia's 36), but bankers are still calling it one of the bourse's best years in a decade. The reason is size, not volume. UI Boustead's real estate investment trust was one of three Southeast Asian listings this year to raise more than US$500 million. SGX had only four IPOs in 2024, the lowest in more than ten years, before the 2025 equity market development programme and simplified listing rules started bringing issuers back. DBS global head of investment banking Clifford Lee said Singapore could see multiple times last year's IPO proceeds if conditions hold. The bourse is on track for 30 listings through the end of this year.
Read more: CNA
Seized Penthouses Go to Auction
Ten luxury apartments, six at Martin Modern in River Valley and four at Wallich Residence in Tanjong Pagar, are going under the hammer on September 23 at indicative prices from S$2.238 million ($1.74 million) to S$6.78 million ($5.27 million). They are the first of more than 80 properties that were seized in Singapore's S$3 billion ($2.33 billion) money laundering case; the rest should be put on the block through May 2027. Proceeds will go to the Consolidated Fund.
Read more: Business Times
Court Blocks Sands China Gambling Debt Claim
Justice Philip Jeyaretnam has refused to let Venetian Macau Ltd (a unit of Sands China), collect on a HK$19.35 million ($2.5 million) gambling debt from Singapore resident Hu Yangning. Hu borrowed up to HK$15 million from the Macau casino in 2023; when he defaulted, Venetian Macau won a default judgment in Hong Kong for the sum plus 18% interest, then tried to register it in Singapore under the Reciprocal Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act. Jeyaretnam said that the promissory note is inseparable from the underlying wager, and used the Civil Law Act's bar on suing over gambling debts. His decision overturns a 2004 precedent that had allowed enforcement of a foreign casino debt. Hu still owes the money everywhere else, and Venetian Macau can (and surely will!) chase him in other jurisdictions.
Read more: Sccgmanagement (Burswood precedent overturned), Ggrasia (local vs foreign operators)
Wong, Anutin Plan Joint ASEAN Chair Agenda
Wong flew to Bangkok for a one-day visit last Wednesday where he met with Thai PM Anutin Charnvirakul for the first Singapore-Thailand Leaders' Retreat in eleven years. Singapore will be taking the ASEAN chair in 2027 and will hand it over to Thailand for 2028, and the two want a shared multi-year agenda so the bloc's priorities don't get reset in the process. The agenda includes extending the PayNow-PromptPay link (introduced in 2021 as the world's first real-time payments tie-up) into a wider multilateral framework, more Singaporean capital for Thai growth in semiconductors, logistics, and the green/ digital economies, and an MOU between the two welfare ministries. Singapore was Thailand's largest source of FDI last year (US$17.57 billion), and bilateral trade was S$52.4 billion ($39.8 billion) through 2025, up 17.8 percent over 2024.
Read more: Business Times (rice trade deal), 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.
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