Daily Briefing: Sembcorp's two new Singapore projects; HNA's partner to consider scaling back ties

And here's a look at Singapore's economy since its independence.

From the Motley Fool Singapore: Singapore remains a key contributor to the utilities business. SembCorp Industries chief Neil McGregor said: “Singapore operations, which contributed 50% of Utilities’ earnings, performed well, delivering a net profit of 29% due to strong performance from its centralized utilities and gas businesses.

Whilst competition in the power market continues to be intense, our diversified Utilities operations do provide resilience.” McGregor also touched on two new projects in Singapore, which deals in rooftop solar energy: “We also strengthened our green energy capabilities by adding rooftop solar facilities in Singapore to our growing international renewable energy portfolio.

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From Bloomberg via Yahoo!: HNA Group Co.’s partner in an overseas property trust is exploring ways to potentially scale back its ties to the embattled Chinese conglomerate, people with knowledge of the matter said.

AEP Investment Management Pte is weighing options for reducing HNA Group’s involvement in the planned Singapore initial public offering of HNA Commercial REIT, which was going to be backed by about S$1 billion ($735 million) of properties from the two partners, according to the people. All possibilities are under consideration, including lowering the stake HNA Group would take in the trust and the company that manages it, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.

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From Shares Investment via Yahoo!: As our Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and all other National Service (NS) bodies prepare for the big NS50 celebration, let’s take a quick look at how far we’ve come in terms of economic progress since we gained independence in 1965.

According to a recent Bloomberg article, Singapore’s economy grew from a mere US$2 billion in 1970 to US$295 billion in 2016. Undoubtedly, our economy has been slowing ever since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Nevertheless, for a country as small as ours, it’s inevitable that our economy will face growth headwinds now that we’re one of the world’s most expensive country. Speaking of expensive, that brings us to our next point.

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