Daily Briefing: Pending Chinese and Japanese infra projects in Singapore hit US$48b; DBS poaches senior technologist from Huawei

And SingPost launched 10 new stamps to commemorate the bicentennial.

From Bloomberg:

The value of pending Japanese and Chinese infrastructure projects in Singapore amounts to US$48.37b, according to data from Fitch Solutions. Of this number, Japan's tally stands at US$19.97b and China at US$28.402b. This is divided across 24 Japanese infra projects and 13 from China. 

Japanese-backed projects in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam -- are valued at US$367b whilst China’s tally stands at US$255b.

 The Asian Development Bank has estimated that Southeast Asia’s economies will need US$210b a year in infrastructure investment from 2016 to 2030, just to keep up the momentum in economic growth.

The latest Fitch figures, provided in an emailed response to Bloomberg, count only pending projects -- those at the stages of planning, feasibility study, tender and currently under construction. 

Read more here. 

From eFinancial Careers:

DBS has poached a senior technologist, Trevor Cheung, from embattled Chinese tech company Huawei to help lead one of its most important technology teams as he takes on the role of managing director, ecosystems, group technology and operations. 

This move comes as banks in Singapore start to ramp up their recruitment of people with expertise in ecosystems, the platforms that banks are increasingly using to build partnerships with fintech startups.

Cheung was previously VP of ecosystem management, global technical service, in the Shenzhen headquarters of Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant that is currently the subject of a US government clampdown.

DBS currently has nine vacancies with ecosystems in the job title. Most of these demand knowledge of APIs (application programming interfaces), the systems that allow banks’ applications to communicate with those at fintechs, giving them access to customer accounts, payments and other data, and making banks less reliant on their own siloed digital channels.

Read more here. 

From Channel News Asia:

Singapore Post launched a special set of stamps to commemorate Singapore's bicentennial.

The set of 10 stamps depicts key milestones in the country’s history, even before 1819 when Sir Stamford Raffles arrived in Singapore.

"The stamp set features a tapestry of Singapore’s rich and varied history, tracking Singapore’s story from settlement to nationhood," said SingPost.

Read more here. 

Photo from Singapore Post Facebook page