Daily Briefing: Singapore achieves self reliance in water; Singapore strengthens anti-money laundering

And strong arrivals to help absorb hotel supply.

Singapore has achieved self-reliance in water and is building more capacity to meet a projected doubling in demand in the next 45 years, a minister said. The city state, which has a contract to buy from neighboring Malaysia more than half its current daily water requirement of 400 to 420 million imperial gallons, has been able to meet demand even when dry weather reduced the Malaysian supply, Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli said in an interview last week. Read more here.

Singapore’s central bank said it will step up efforts to combat financial crime by setting up dedicated departments to counter money laundering and to strengthen its enforcement operations. The Monetary Authority of Singapore will create an anti-money laundering unit as well as establishing a new team to carry out onsite supervision of how financial institutions manage money-laundering risks, according to a MAS statement issued Monday. Find out more here.

The strong tourist arrivals in Singapore in recent times may help support a bottoming of the RevPAR declines that have plagued Hospitality REITs since 2013, according to a Credit Suisse report released on Monday. In the recent figures from The Singapore Tourism Board (STB), tourist arrivals in the republic increased by 14.4 percent year-on-year to 1.38 million in April, bringing visitor arrivals in January to April to 5.53 million, or up 14.1 percent year-on-year. Read more here.