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On top of everything, Singapore has an anti China stance and has reduced immigration and work permits and reduced their connectivity with China.
China was so angry in 2017 that the only PM of a country (imagine, being the only country's PM in the world) to whom China did not extend an invitation to attend their multi trillion dollar OBOR summit.
"China’s decision not to invite Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to last weekend’s Belt and Road Forum highlights the still-strained ties between the two countries".
"Smaller nations with less-established diplomatic ties with Beijing also sent their heads of government to the summit. These included Fiji, Chile, Greece, and Hungary."
"Tai, the Cambridge-based observer, said the new Silk Road could drive a permanent wedge between the two countries. “The Belt and Road promises to bring regional connectivity on an unprecedented scale, which could soon undercut Singapore’s most important asset – her position as the premier trade and financial centre between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea,” he said."
Singapore is in serious decline in all spheres except for some medical or IT research.
Here is continuous slide in their tiny manufacturing.
We would blame it on high cost of work force, high rents, low domestic consumption and animosity with China and Malaysia.
Singapore is one of the fastest ageing cities in the world which means a lot of economic trouble. Older people spend less, work less, depend more on health care and resent high cost of living.
No wonder, the politicians are curbing heavily on immigration policies and thus reducing the number of young people entering the economy.
20 Feb 2019: Ageing Singapore tries to avoid the Japan trap
Singapore exports are simply plunging and can be very harmful for the tiny nation of 5-6m.
"Electronic exports dropped by 15.9 per cent year-on-year, following the 11.2 per cent decrease in December.
PCs, disk media products and ICs contracted by 34.3 per cent, 29.2 per cent and 6.8 per cent respectively, contributing the most to the decline in electronic NODX.
Non-electronic exports declined by 7.9 per cent year-on-year in January, slowing further from a 7.4 per cent decline the previous month.
Specialised machinery (-32.8 per cent), petrochemicals (-11.8 per cent) and non-electric engines & motors (-40.9 per cent) contributed the most to this decline.
Overall, exports to Singapore's top 10 markets declined in January. The largest contributors to the NODX decrease were China (-25.4 per cent), South Korea (-31.4 per cent) and Hong Kong (-11.7 per cent)."
"However, there are concerns that Singapore may be heavily exposed to an economic downturn in China, which is its second largest export partner (16 per cent) behind Hong Kong (19 per cent)."
18 Feb 2019: Singapore’s January exports to China collapsed in ‘very worrying’ development for both economies
The latest information coming from Singapore is that their main star of their economy, which is banking, is in turmoil, along with their stock markets and listed companies.
Imagine this headline!
24 Feb 2019: The Singapore banking jobs where you have no future
Goldman Sachs is expected cut jobs globally but also in Singapore.
"If the axe falls on commodities traders, Singapore is likely to be affected. Goldman uses the Republic as its APAC commodities hub, including for metals trading, the product area said to be most at risk of global redundancies. The firm also employs operations and middle-office commodities staff in Singapore."
25 Feb 2019: France's Societe Generale to cut 1,500 jobs
The corporate profits are continuing their steady decline.
On 8 Mar 2019, there was an even a rumor of accounts getting frozen in Bank of China in Singapore and hundreds turned up in long line ups to withdraw their money, due to some client information not being updated with the bank.
But we believe, that the Bank of China has resolved the issue by extending the deadline for updating customer details.
8 Mar 2019: Singapore elderly clients queue for hours at Bank of China branches in fear of accounts getting frozen
Real estate is in also a decline. Money has stopped flowing.
An incident that has been ongoing since Sep 2018 where salaries of workers was not being paid, turned into a protest outside the Govt offices yesterday in Singapore where protests are banned.
Main contractor is blaming the sub contractor who is blaming the tough environment.
Instead of new listings on Singapore stock exchange, delistings are rising rapidly.
"As of the end of last year, the market capitalisation of companies with primary listings in Singapore had fallen by SGD97.5b, or 14%, from the end of 2014, according to SGX data. The bourse’s average daily turnover has been halved since 2007.
12 Feb 2019: Singapore’s stock market is shrinking
12 Feb 2019: The Incredible Shrinking Singapore Stock Market
Meanwhile, retail has simply collapsed and hundreds of stores have shut over the last few years including top brands and hundreds are barely making any money.
Some examples of closures in the last 1 month or so.
16 Feb 2019: Razer Game Store to cease operations
"Bath and body product retailer Crabtree and Evelyn will be shutting its 12 stores here in the coming months as it moves its operations online, with some outlets already emptied of goods."
Business growth and opportunities are extremely terrible and most new businesses cannot survive in a tough environment where low wage foreign workers are not being permitted, rents are sky high while cost of living is super high, therefore, even people with jobs don't have the capacity to spend. Plus the entire country is ageing.
Therefore, some stores are closing within months.
16 Feb 2019: Newstead Technologies closing down sale from now till Feb. 17, 2019 offers 30% off storewide
Just see how bad the situation of people is who are young, start a new business and cannot earn and then eventually shut down.
"“Even though we were popular, we were not popular enough. The stall still could not cover our salaries. We had to take a pay cut. We have never taken a full salary in the last 14 months,” she added."
17 Feb 2019: 'We have never taken a full salary as young hawkers'
Property auction sales have tumbled badly as money evaporates.2019 is expected to be even worse.
7 Mar 2019: Auction Sales Slumped 46.5% To $55.3m In 2018
"Housing values may drop as much as 3 per cent this year, and new home sales might plunge 20 per cent, according to Derek Tan, a real estate analyst at DBS Group Holdings."
We also hear that many Singaporeans now are relocating to Johor (next door in Malaysia) and prefer to commute for 30-60 minutes rather than live in Singapore.
This will further accelerate in the years ahead thus hurting rental and asset values as well as sales of groceries and basic necessities in Singapore because Malaysia is far cheaper than Singapore.
On top of all the declines in Singapore, China has announced a very ambitious project to rival San Francisco Bay of USA.
They will create a new "Silicon Valley" of their own and combine resources of 11 cities with population of more than 71 million combined including HK, Macau and Shenzen etc and make the largest business and economic hub in the world!
This will hurt Singapore directly just due to the amount of spending China will do and how large this project will become in tech, finance and associated sectors in which Singapore has had an edge thus far.
We know that if China begins something, it always comes to reality and gobbles up whatever else was happening in the world before that.
In steel, China manufactures 10 times more steel than India who is the second largest producer.
Same in shoes, out of approx 13 billion shoes made annually in this world, 12 billion are manufactured in China.
Same is the case of televisions or computers whose demand in today's world is rising and rising in which China is the unparalleled leader.
In terms of high speed rail, all the other countries in the entire world combined have less high speed rail than China who are now around 19,000 kms and will be 30,000 kms within the next few years.
Same goes for China's national savings, i.e. their reserves, all the world combined does not have 3.1 trillion dollars.
The point being that when China announces a project, there will be western "pundits" and so called "Chief Economists" who will come out and say stupid things about China that China can never succeed while they are watching their own jobs and their own companies falling apart in front of their eyes.
In order to protect their own jobs in the western world, they will keep saying that China cannot do this nor do that but China continues to quietly take over the entire world while creating 12-14m jobs per annum!
None of these economists or pundits predicted the collapse of Lehman or Merill Lynch or saw the Dutch and German or Italian or Portuguese banking collapse coming but they can predict projects collapsing in China? lol
Who will believe these jokers working as analcysts and economists in the banks or media commentators today in 2019?
China is coming and everyone better buckle up, including Singapore.
China will eat everyone's cake not just that of Singapore.
Almost all countries who deposited their legal or ill gotten money as deposits in Singapore are leaving one by one in tens of billions every year, that has nothing to do with China.
Singapore being in close proximity and hence fully dependent on China in the past with today's ageing population and expensive cost of doing business will be drained out and fall apart on it's own.
China need not do anything. They will just stand aside and watch to their own advantage.
"According to economists, the project could eventually overshadow Singapore.
Lawrence Loh, director of the Centre for Governance, Institutions and Organisations at NUS Business School, noted that the huge project "will definitely" have an impact on Singapore.
"The geoeconomics of the new Chinese development will be formidable in its scale and scope, [creating] synergies across many industries and markets," he said. Loh added that the Greater Bay Area is also "a much bigger region," with 12 times Singapore's population and almost five times its GDP.
"The main challenge for Singapore will be specifically in the finance sector and -- more broadly -- in its location as a business hub," Loh noted."
All the news on the humungous new China project in one place by SCMP: Greater Bay Area
Singapore Govt is running short on revenues hence, it is planning to hike VAT by a further 2% to 9% instead of making it easier on businesses.
""As our population ages, spending on permanent healthcare schemes and other parts of the healthcare system will continue to increase structurally. Funding this requires a structural increase in our operating revenues," he said."
Foreign worker curbs are going to get even more tighter in 2019 and onwards.
"The foreign workers in Singapore's services sector face heightened risk of losing their jobs after finance minister Heng Swee Keat announced in his budget address that the government will be reducing the dependency ratio ceiling (DRC) for the services sector from the current 40% to 38% by January 1, 2020 and to 35% in January 1, 2021."
"The stricter rules of foreign workers would also deal a blow to labour-intensive service companies like Sheng Siong, Jumbo, Raffles Medical, SMG, HMI, ComfortDelGro, Singapore Post, and SATS where labour cost is a major expense, accounting for around 20-50% of their total revenue, according to UOB Kay Hian."
Last year, Singapore was named the most expensive city in the world which is why we believe that Singapore does not have a great future, given the above dynamics.
14 March 2018: Singapore named the world's most expensive city
In the end, no discussion about contemporary economics of Singapore can be complete without discussing the massive blow up of Noble Group (a commodities giant) that has been dragging on for years, due to investment of the Govt and the families mentioned below.
Singapore has done a great job of hiding it under the carpet but we hear about it once in a while in the global media.
All the bond holders and shareholders who lost billions of dollars are very angry and all the banks too, who lent billions to this company and have lost it almost all.
All the bond holders and shareholders who lost billions of dollars are very angry and all the banks too, who lent billions to this company and have lost it almost all.
10 Dec 2018: Noble’s ignoble end leaves a stain on Singapore
The last sentence on the the above link is quite telling.
"If Singapore wants to stop itself being overtaken by equity markets in Indonesia or Malaysia, or falling further behind Thailand, it needs to build on its virtues — not abandon them."
Don't tell anyone how the city state is managed by a handful of families, and the Govt whom they control, that can be counted with fingers on just one hand.
"Go through the 45 companies that comprise about 80% of the market capitalisation on the Singapore exchange and one fact immediately jumps out: All but four are either controlled or have significant ownership stakes held by a small number of families and the government."
But it seems that even the most powerful people of Singapore are losing their grip on the economy and their companies due to which over the next several years, the price will be paid by the workers, tax payers and the expats in Singapore who will continue to grind (pay high taxes while receiving tough wages) while the few super wealthy will enjoy the spoils (in or out of Singapore).
If Singapore is super expensive, has a massive ageing population, China is undercutting it, it's banking sector and stock market is shrinking, billions are leaving, real estate and construction is weakening, Govt revenues are tight, demand and costs for hospitals and medicare is rising, retailers or stores cannot survive, taxes are rising, wages are rising due to extremely tight Govt policies on expat workers, population mostly is shrinking due to lack of work permits for existing and Singaporeans moving to Johor, exports are declining, currency needs to remain strong instead of depreciating unlike other nations thus depriving Singapore of an advantage in today's extremely competitive world and it is not going to play a major role in a historical multi trillion dollar tech and transport and finance and logistics hubs being created by China right next to it, how can any city or country under such challenging circumstances not have major decline in the years ahead?
China's PSYOP against Singapore is back after an absence of almost 2 years.
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