Daily Briefing: PM Lee warns of trade war's big impact on Singapore; NTU Singapore builds furniture-assembling robots

And half of Singaporean firms still only have 20% of female bosses.

From CNBC:

Scientists, with the help of researchers from Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, have taken three years to develop two robotic arms that can assemble IKEA flat-pack furniture in just 20 minutes.

The robot took just 20 minutes and 19 seconds to put together a wooden chair from the Swedish furniture retailer. Both arms are equipped with grips and a 3-D camera

The NTU scientists developed algorithms to help the robot build the chair. They said the human-quality of robotic hands enables it to perform complex tasks.

Read more here. 

From Reuters: 

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, Singapore's prime minister Lee Hsien Loong wrote that the island nation is "very vulnerable" to the escalating trade dispute between the US and China.

"In his article titled ‘Nobody wants a trade war’, Lee Hsien Loong said that even wide-ranging trade initiatives such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership would not compensate for the damage caused by a trade war for most countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

'Singapore is a global hub that connects the economies of the United States and Asia. We are a small, open economy with trade flows more than three times our GDP,' Lee said."

Read more here. 

From HumanResources Online: 

The recently released Workday Diversity & Inclusion Survey 2018 Singapore by Workday yesterday revealed that more than half (52.8%) of Singapore firms have less than 20% of women in leadership roles. According to the release, it states that there is still much work to be done when it comes to Singapore businesses embracing inclusion and diversity in the workplace.

Read more here. 

Photo from Nanyang Technological University