Daily Briefing: Singapore to ease VC rules to promote financing for startups; ExxonMobil to expand its Singapore refinary

And here's how you should budget to buy a car.

 Singapore is proposing to ease regulations for venture capital managers including shortening their application process in a bid to promote financing for startup development. Under a consultation paper published by the Monetary Authority of Singapore Wednesday, new and existing VC managers won’t be subject to the same capital requirements and business conduct rules that currently apply to fund mangers in general. The MAS will focus primarily on fitness and propriety assessment, and retain regulatory powers to deal with “errant VC managers,” it said in a statement. Read more here.

ExxonMobil announced today the expansion of its Singapore refinery to support the production of the company’s EHC™ Group II base stocks, which will strengthen the global supply of these products and enhance the Singapore facility’s competitiveness. Construction is expected to begin during the second quarter of 2017 with completion anticipated in 2019. Click here for the full story.

Welcome to Singapore. We’re a city-state where public transport is, despite the higher rate of breakdowns in recent years, still one of the best in the world. We’re also an island nation so small you could fit two Singapores into Batam island. And yet, many Singaporeans are still spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a new car, and for good reason – the sheer convenience of having a car is immeasurable. Check the story from MoneySmart here.