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Business
OCBC loses big this quarter. Singapore’s second largest lender has just reported an unexpected 18% drop in quarterly profit. The poor performance is attributed to a 57% increase in bad debt charges. Seems like they’re worried about their exposure from the oil and gas sector, with net allowances for loans rising to $305m. O$P$.
Oil prices can’t seem to get a grip. Despite new reports that OPEC members were complying with production cuts, increase in US shale output seems to outweigh that effect, with Brent crude down to $55.61. Why does it matter? Singapore’s economy is heavily dependent on oil servicing industries. (See OCBC).
MAS to boost financing of SME’s and startups. They’ve relaxed rules on finance companies, changing the uncollateralised loans cap from 10% to 25%, thus making it easier for SME’s and startups to receive funding. So what? They’re a major source of capital, with $7b in loans to SME’s.
Things are getting expensive in China. Producer price inflation has hit 6 year highs, and consumer inflation at 3 year highs with food prices rising by 2.7% and transport/communication costs rising by 2.3%.
World
North Korea continues to be North Korea. Their latest ballistic missile test towards Japan’s waters has been unanimously condemned by the United Nations (the usual), pushing Trump to declare North Korea as a “big, big problem”. Though there hasn’t been a tweet about it yet, so it’s probably not as big as Ivanka’s clothing line being pulled out of Nordstrom.
President Trump cozies up with allies. President Trump’s meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada went smoothly, despite having differing values on many contentious issues. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan was also welcomed back to Japan with higher approval ratings after his weekend golf trip with Mr. Trump. All this despite their cringeworthy 19-second handshake.
Local
Daily dose of cuteness: Check out these otters that were spotted in NUS for the first time
Chickening out. In other, more depressing, nature-related news, AVA has decided to cull wild chickens in Thomson. After facing backlash, they now claim the decision was based on bird flu fears, not the prior noise complaints.
Tech
A startup from San Francisco wants to take a global selfie. They plan to launch an Indian PSLV rocket that will deploy 103 small satellites in an attempt to set a world record. The satellites will cover a third of the earth, allowing unprecedented coverage to image the world daily.
Dyson wants to build more robots in Singapore. They’ve just opened a new R&D lab focused on advanced manufacturing, software development, and robotics. The advanced manufacturing team will open 190 jobs, so it’s all good news for us.
