SG Morning Highlights | Singapore's unemployment rates stay low in November: MOM

Advancers / Decliners is 57 to 52, with 43.69 million securities worth S$69.43 million changing hands.

Enterprise Singapore's programme to support local companies with high-growth potential to scale their operations has seen some "promising signs", said Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong.

In a written answer to parliamentary questions on Monday (Jan 9), Gan said that out of the Scale-up SG programme's first three cohorts, 85 per cent of companies have created new businesses or products, and more than half have expanded into new overseas markets.

In addition, these companies have also created some 500 professional, managerial, executive, and technical (PMET) jobs in total.

Asked what the government can do besides publicly naming businesses that use the goods and services tax (GST) increase as an excuse to raise prices unjustifiably, Minister of State for Trade and Industry Low Yen Ling did not explicitly answer the question, but repeated that the Committee Against Profiteering (CAP) is prepared to "publicly highlight" such businesses.

West Coast GRC Member of Parliament Foo Mee Har had asked what other enforcement powers the government has. In her reply in Parliament on Monday (Jan 9), Low said: "The CAP will continue to review all feedback received and will engage businesses, where necessary, to address the issue."

The GST rate rose on Jan 1 from 7 per cent to 8 per cent. The CAP's role is to review and investigate feedback on unjustified price increases of essential products and services that use the GST increase as an excuse.

Singapore's unemployment rates dipped slightly in November and held steady at around pre-pandemic levels, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) on Monday (Jan 9).

The overall unemployment rate nudged down slightly to 1.9 per cent, from 2 per cent the month before.

Resident unemployment was the same as the previous month at 2.8 per cent, while citizen unemployment dropped to 2.9 per cent, from 3 per cent before.

Federal Reserve policymakers say fresh inflation data out later this week will help them decide whether they can slow the pace of interest rate hikes at their upcoming meeting, to just a quarter point increase instead of the larger jumps they used for most of 2022.

If US consumer price data released on Thursday confirms the cooling seen in most recent monthly jobs report, Atlanta Fed Bank President Raphael Bostic told reporters on Monday that he would have to take a quarter point increase "more seriously and to move in that direction."

"Eventually I want us to get to 25" basis point rate hikes, he said. "The specific timing of that is going to be a function of the data that comes in."

The move will result in a primary listing in Singapore, a concurrent one in Saudi Arabia, and a demerger of Olam Agri and Olam Group through a distribution in specie of shares in Olam Agri to shareholders.

If the transaction goes through, Olam Agri's initial public offering (IPO) will be the first dual-listing for a company on both the Singapore and Saudi Arabia stock exchanges and the first-ever listing in Saudi Arabia for a non-Gulf Cooperation Council incorporated business, Olam Group said in a press statement.

Over the same period a year ago, the company posted an audited unrealised loss of HK$170 million.

"The loss is due to share price changes of its listed investments, which are marked to market and therefore unrealised," the company said.

In its report published Jan 5, ISS noted WFS' expertise in the cargo handling industry, handling services and expansive global network as factors for supporting the deal.

The iron ore project, located at the Paraburdoo site in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, will include the construction of a new Run of Mine (ROM) pad, primary cruising facility, overland conveyancing circuit, as well as modifications to the coarse ore stockpile and downstream conveying system.

Civmec added that the package of works will utilise most of the company's in-house capabilities.