Little Business Analyst

Little Business Analyst

Singapore Unveils Plan to Create 4,000 Finance Sector Jobs

(Source: bloomberg)
Singapore wants to bolster its status as a wealth management and foreign-exchange center as part of plans to create more financial-sector jobs and mitigate the effect of rapid changes in technology. In a plan unveiled Monday, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said it aims to create 4,000 net new jobs in financial services and financial technology, and achieve real growth in the sector of 4.3 percent annually, faster than the overall economy. “With technology transforming the way financial services are produced, delivered, and consumed, it is critical that Singapore’s financial sector also transforms, to stay relevant and competitive,” the MAS said in a statement. Banks around the world are cutting jobs as the industry is transformed by digital technology, and the application of artificial intelligence and robotics. Vikram Pandit, who ran Citigroup Inc., has predicted some 30 percent of banking jobs will disappear over the next five years.The MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore) listed three elements to its so-called industry transformation map for financial services. It said Singapore aims to be:
-       A leading international wealth management hub. The MAS said it’s working with the industry to develop Singapore as a “centre of excellence for wealth management technology and innovation.”
-       An Asian hub for asset management, and a place where more funds are domiciled
-       A global foreign exchange price discovery and liquidity center in the Asian time zone. Singapore is currently the third largest foreign-exchange center globally. The MAS said it will encourage key participants to “anchor their matching and pricing engines here, to enable market participants to benefit from better liquidity and greater efficiency in executing FX transactions.” Singapore is projecting a 4.3 percent annual growth rate for the financial sector through 2020, higher than the planned overall economic growth of 2 percent to 3 percent included in a set of national strategies unveiled in February. The financial sector accounts for about 13 percent of Singapore’s gross domestic product and employs around 200,000 people. Assets under management grew 7 percent last year to S$2.7 trillion ($1.9 trillion), according to MAS data published in September. It’s a good time to set financial sector priorities because the macro-economic environment is improving, said Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp.’s Chief Executive Officer Sam Tsien. “That being the case, it is even more important for us to get the infrastructure ready, so that we have the people, the technology and the regulatory-facilitating facilities,” Tsien said in an interview Monday. The MAS is also working with the industry to:

-               Build private market funding platforms to attract a wider network of investors
-               Become a full service Asian infrastructure financing hub
-               Become a leading center for Asian fixed income
-               Attract global capital for Asian insurance and risk transfer
-               Create common utilities including for electronic payments, digital ID and electronic know-your-client checks.


*Point *
  -               Singapore is projecting a 4.3 percent annual growth rate for the financial sector through 2020
  -               <Good moment for insurance product, sales and marketing might be goes there (comment on Facebook)

Special guest on  Chevron House roadshow

(Source: Ranker)
Chevron House, formerly called Caltex House, is a high-rise skyscraper located in the central business district of Singapore. It is located on 30 Raffles Place, in the financial district of Raffles Place. The building is near several buildings and landmarks, such as Singapore Land Tower, Hitachi Tower, Change Alley and The Arcade, all of which are less than 100 metres away. The development has direct underground access to Raffles Place MRT Station.


(Source: Facebook)

*Point*
-               So there is also special with Chevon (what is that ?)
-               Suggest Rent Car RC9 

Smaller contractors face obstacles adopting technology in construction

(Source: ChannelNewsAsia) It is one of the first companies in Singapore to use Mass-Engineered Timber (MET), a type of building material where strong, solid wooden pieces are cut and made in factories, and brought just-in-time to be assembled on-site. B19’s managing director Kang Choon Boon, who used the timber product to build Nanyang Technological University’s new sports hall The Wave, likened a structure made with MET to a do-it-yourself product – one that even workers with basic skills can install. Mr Kang said that using MET will increase construction cost by 20 per cent compared to using reinforced concrete, but believes cost will tumble when more firms embrace the material as there will be economies of scale. Meanwhile, its other benefits are: manpower savings, shorter construction time, and a much greener product than other types of building materials.
It is also a material the Government has been pushing for, as it moves most of the construction work off-site and improves productivity. Using such prefabrication methods and adopting digital tools are key thrusts in the Industry Transformation Map for the construction industry launched by the Ministry of National Development on Tuesday. So why is it that B19 was only able to apply the method to a handful of projects? “We depend very much on the developer and the client on what their requirements are,” Mr Kang said, adding that some of the big boys are still used to the traditional methods of construction and unwilling to “accept new technologies”. A similar sentiment was shared by PQ Builders, another mid-sized contractor. “We are not the decision maker,” said PQ Builder’s director Peh Ke-Pin. “It’s a top-down approach." Mr Peh said that his company, which has about 200 employees, has spent close to S$1.5 million on research and construction technology. They have also tapped on government grants to finance their purchases. Still, they are limited by their size. The issue of maintenance also throws a spanner in the works, especially for firms like his, which are often tight on cash. The current downturn in the construction sector does not help either, he said. "Some projects may use (a particular) equipment, but after the project’s (done), the equipment may not be applicable to other projects,” Mr Peh said. “It needs some place to sit, so the storage cost will also be (an) issue”. Besides the need to pay for a place to park their equipment, Mr Peh said the company would also have to incur extra cost to service them. In response, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) said that it is not “deaf” to the needs of small and mid-sized firms – the agency told Channel NewsAsia it is now exploring a model for companies to lease mid-range equipment.
INVEST IN THE FUTURE
While companies incur extra costs to acquire technology, they have to be willing to invest to cement their lead, industry observers said. Mr Chong Kee Sen, the immediate past president of The Institution of Engineers, Singapore said that contractors who begin to use technology “would be the first movers”. “It can (bring) greater opportunities for your work in Singapore,” Mr Chong said, adding that it is an “exportable skill” which firms can use to bid for and work on infrastructure projects outside of Singapore. As Asia grows, local contractors cannot keep relying on foreign labour, said Ms Leong-Kok Su Ming, the deputy group director of BCA’s construction productivity and quality group. “With globalisation, and Asia and Southeast Asia progressing and maturing, there will be more issues with manpower crunch,” she said. Going high-tech is also one way to draw fresh faces into an industry seen as dirty, dangerous, and demanding, one industry veteran added. "It becomes more attractive for young people… to move into the construction industry, because of the automation and new technology employed,” said Dr David Chua Kim Huat, a professor at the National University of Singapore’s civil and environmental engineering department. Meanwhile, there are government grants that companies can tap on to help finance technology adoption. Under the BCA’s Construction Productivity and Capability Fund (CPCF), which amounts to about S$800 million, industry players can apply for monetary support to upgrade their companies - from sending workers for training, to procuring new equipment. In response to queries from Channel NewsAsia, the BCA said that as of end-September 2017, more than S$480 million under the CPCF has been committed. It added that more than 9,000 companies have benefitted from the fund, of which more than 90 per cent are small and medium-sized firms.


*Point*
-               In response, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) said that it is not “deaf” to the needs of small and mid-sized firms 
-               the agency told Channel NewsAsia it is now exploring a model for companies to lease mid-range equipment.
-               Timber Product (Source: Facebook)