Singapore Weekly
Singapore business, finance and trade news, every Monday.
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.
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.
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.