Singapore Weekly 20260316

Mar 16, 2026

Singapore business, finance and trade news, every Monday.

china town and high rise buildings — Photo by Adrian Jakob on Unsplash

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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