Daily Briefing: High speed rail viability; Singapore loses to peers in board diversity

And NODX in Singapore plunged to lowest level in 3 years.

Some members from Johor's opposition party have raised doubts about the feasibility of the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur High Speed Rail (HSR) project, due to its relatively lower Passenger Flow Volume (PFV), reported The Sun Daily. According to Andrew Chen Kah Eng, State Assemblyman for Stulang, Johor, the HSR’s forecasted annual number of commuters stands at 18 million, based on data cited by the Prime Minister’s Department. Read more here.

Singapore, Southeast Asia’s most advanced economy, is falling behind its less developed peers when it comes to women breaking the glass ceiling at companies. The island nation is ranked near the bottom on female representation on company boards in the Asia-Pacific region, behind only South Korea and Japan, according to a Korn Ferry study of 2014 annual reports in 10 economies. Find out more here.

Non-oil domestic exports (NODX) numbers in Singapore have plunged to their lowest in 3 years. The 15.6% fall last month was worse than the market forecast of a 12.3% drop. The low export numbers could result in a downward revision to the first quarter manufacturing output and GDP (gross domestic product) growth figures. Read more here.