Prime Minister Tony Abbott has made a brief stopover in Singapore on his way back from London.
It is understood a meeting is being arranged with Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, who this week marks 10 years in office.
Mr Abbott has invited Mr Lee to attend the G20 leaders summit in Brisbane as a guest.
The prime minister is expected back in Canberra on Thursday night.
NEW DELHI: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will travel to Singapore, one of the key trading parters of India, on Friday to explore deeper cooperation, particularly in implementation of government's ambitious smart city project and flag off year-long celebrations to mark 50 years of diplomatic ties between the two countries.
Swaraj, during her three-day trip, will hold meetings with top leaders of Singapore including Prime Minister Lee Hsien and her counterpart K Shanmugam.
Her engagements in the country include flagging off year-long celebration to mark 50 years of diplomatic relations between the two nations and meetings with think tanks and vibrant Indian diaspora.
External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said the Minister will explore possibility of Singapore's involvement in the Smart City project and whether it can participate in rejuvenation of other Indian cities.
Singapore is India's largest trading partner in ASEAN grouping. It is also the source of highest FDI to India which was $ 5.9 billion last year.
Singapore is also destination of highest Indian investments abroad during the last decade. It houses 4,000-4,500 Indian companies who have offices there.
The Spokesperson said Swaraj will also try to obtain Singapore's cooperation in various other infrastructure projects.
He said Swaraj will also look for cooperation with Singapore in replicating its water conservation and recycling projects in some of the big cities in India.
Approximately, 30 per cent of Singapore's water supply comes from recycling of water and rain water harvesting.
Meanwhile, asked when Prime Minister Narendra Modi will undertake his Japan visit, Akbaruddin said it will be announced day after tomorrow.
Summary: China's largest listed telecoms equipment company launches three of its latest smartphones running Android KitKat 4.4 and appoints local reseller Polaris, which will distribute the handsets exclusively in the country.
ZTE has launched three of its latest Android smartphones in Singapore and at the same time announced the appointment of a reseller, which will distribute the new handsets exclusively in the country.
Running on the latest KitKat 4.4, the ZTE Blade VEC 4G, Blade L2, and KIS 3 will be available for the first time in Singapore this weekend, the Chinese smartphone maker said in a statement Wednesday. The devices will be sold exclusively through its Polaris, a Singapore company that owns subsidiaries dealing in the distribution and sale of mobile phones, consumer electronics, and other related services. The company operates 22 outlets in Singapore under the various brands including local telcos SingTel and M1, as well as Apple, Lenovo, and Sony.
The Blade VEC 4G is priced locally at S$299 without contract, while the Blade L2 costs S$169 without contract, and the KIS 3 at S$99 without contract. The Blade VEC 4G and KIS 3 will also be available at all SingTel outlets.
This is ZTE's first reseller partnership in Singapore, though its handsets have been available here via other resellers and mobile phone shops across the island. It has a local office and customer service center.
Zhang Lei, ZTE's vice president of mobile devices for Asia-Pacific and Commonwealth Independent States, said in the statement: 'Making the latest mobile technology accessible to all is a top priority for ZTE, and we are doing this with the three exclusive launches in Singapore. The phones run on the latest KitKat 4.4, and are the first China-manufactured smartphones to use the newest Android operating software in Singapore.'
Zhang added that the deal with Polaris will enable the Chinese smartphone maker to bring its devices to Singapore as well as other Asian markets, such as Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
Polaris CEO Peter Ang noted that ZTE is China's largest public-listed telecoms equipment company and currently owns 13 percent of global essential patents on 4G LTE. Headquartered in Shenzhen, China, ZTE trades on the Hong Kong and Shenzhen stock exchanges.
The smartphone maker last month reported net profits of between 1 billion yuan (US$162. 48 million) and 1.15 billion yuan (US$186.86 million) for the first half of 2014, up 223 percent to 271 percent from the previous year. It attributed the profit climb to various factors including an increase in operating revenue from domestic 4G systems projects, as well improvement in gross profit margin from international projects.
The Blade VEC 4G is ZTE's flagship product featuring a 5-inch screen, full HD screen resolution, 8MP camera, and preinstalled apps such as Evernote and Dropbox. It also comes preloaded with Google Now Launcher and is the first non-Nexus systemic terminal voice control device, ZTE said.
Measuring less than 9mm thick, the Blade L2 also features a 5-inch screen and sports a 5MP camera. It is a dual-SIM device and preinstalled with social media apps such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. To date, ZTE has shipped more than 10 million units of the Blade L2.
The KIS 3 is the company's entry-level smartphone that has a 4-inch screen, 2MP camera, and dual-SIM functionality. It's targeted at elderly folks, offering larger font and widget sizes.
ZTE currently is the world's fourth largest mobile phone manufacturer in terms of unit shipments and has said to invest more than 10 percent of its annual revenue in research and development (R&D). It operates 18 R&D centers in China, France, and India, employing more than 30,000 research engineers.
The company and another major Chinese networking equipment maker, Huawei, in 2012 come under investigation by the U.S., European, as well as Indian government for allegedly spying on the respective countries. Both companies had denied the allegations.
COIMBATORE: Tigerair, the leading Singapore-based budget carrier, on Wednesday announced a special offer - 'Fly to Singapore for Free'' - for the debit, credit and prepaid card customers of HDFC Bank.
The offer begins on August 18 and is valid till September 7, while the travel period is from September 16 to December 5 and January 26, 2015 to March 25, 2015.
During the offer period, credit, debit and prepaid card customers of HDFC Bank can book for a round-trip fare to Singapore and will get onward ticket from India to Singapore complimentary, excluding the airport taxes and other charges.
All-in round trip fares starts at Rs 7,499 with this offer and fares are subject to availability, Tigerair said.
Tigerair has come out with this offer on the occasion of India's 67th Independence Day. Passengers can avail this offer through a special portal created for HDFC Bank cardholders on the airline's official website - www.tigerair.com - for travel to Singapore from any of the five Indian cities - Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi and Tiruchirappalli.
'Since the commencement of our operations six years ago, Tigerair has always committed to provide Indian travellers with the best and affordable flying options to Singapore and across Asia Pacific,' said Robert Yang, commercial director, Tigerair.
'We focus on giving great value to customers and a large segment of our customers have high international travel requirements in the South-East Asia segment,' said Parag Rao, business head of payments, HDFC Bank.
Tigerair operates a total of 37 weekly flights to Singapore from six Indian destinations. The airline also connects to Bali, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Perth and Taipei via Singapore.
The online retailer of PC hardware components makes good on its promise to expand to more countries including Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand and Poland.
In an announcement at this year's Computex, Newegg said that it would be expanding to six new markets by the end of June -- though this was changed to August later on. The e-tailer, known for offering PC hardware components at attractive prices, is now available in India, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland and Singapore.
A quick check on the Singapore store shows that while the selection seems limited for now (the press release mentions this will be improved over time), the prices listed on the site seem competitive compared with what you can get locally.
However, the real killer is in the shipping cost -- when you factor that in, the prices are comparable to what you can get in physical stores (though still slightly lower). Given that that local warranties will be a lot easier to deal with instead of sending a product back for a replacement, Newegg's prices may be a little hard to swallow for now.
However, Newegg did say that the company will ship orders from the US first, and follow up with 'a physical presence to serve local demand.' If this happens, it's likely that shopping with Newegg will be a lot more enticing.
Summary: Once a nation has universal fibre to the premises internet access, the question becomes, what's next?
For a city state like Singapore that is just over half the size of Sydney, rolling out fibre to the premises wasn't a massively daunting or expensive task by comparison to Australia's National Broadband. As the rollout nears completion, the Singapore government is now left to figure out: what do we actually use it for?
Around the same time the Australian government was announcing its then-AU$43 billion NBN in 2009, the Singaporean government announced it would invest approximately S$1 billion on its own nation-wide NBN, which was first flagged in 2006.
Australia's national broadband network operates as two layers, with NBN Co the builder and wholesale services provider on one layer, with the retail service providers on the other layer.
In Singapore, however, the government opted to split the infrastructure and wholesale operation of NBN Co into two companies. S$750 million of the funding went to NetCo - OpenNet - to build the passive fibre network, while OpCo - Nucleus Connect - was given S$250 million to be responsible for designing, building and operating the remaining part of the network such as switches, and transmission equipment, as well as offering wholesale services that retail service providers can sell onto customers.
Unlike NBN Co, which was established by the government to build the network, OpenNet was a consortium of companies including SingTel, Singapore Press Holdings, Axia NetMedia, and Singapore Power Telecommunications, but was bought out in 2013 by NetLink Trust.
The network company, and the operational companies, have their prices regulated through government licences.
Singapore has a population of 5 million, and its total size is 704 square kilometres, meaning the rollout has been almost completed in a relatively short period of time.
'It sounds like a lot, but it is a small city, so it is not that difficult to cover,' Nucleus Connect's Anil Nihalani said in 2012.
'85 percent of our buildings are high-rise residential [and] that makes it easy, because we can get coverage very quickly, but also makes it very challenging, because the high-rise element of it has restrictions in terms of space and existing networks that are there.'
By 2013, the Next Gen NBN reached the entire nation, covering approximately 1.2 million premises across the state.
One particular sore point for the Australian NBN rollout is the definition of whether a premises is considered 'passed' by the fibre network, and whether that premises can order a service. In Singapore, there are just two statuses for a premises: building reached for when the fibre passes where the premises is located, and home reached for when the fibre is installed into the premises.
For installation of the network in apartments, the fibre line is installed by up to three OpenNet contractors through the entry door, through a corridor with trunking installed along the side of the wall to a termination point. For homes, or 'landed properties', the fibre is installed through the existing SingTel ducts and pipes into the premises.
Installation costs S$220 for apartments, and S$450 for houses, but OpenNet has been offering installation for free for the first 15 metres of fibre, with an additional S$33 per 5 metres. The entire installation process can take up to four hours, and then customers can order a service from retail service providers.
To date, there are over 550,000 active customers on the network as of May 2014 connecting with over 27 different retailers, meaning close to half of the premises in the country are accessing the internet through the network.
The advantage of splitting the wholesale company into two layers means there are now eight OpCos on the Next Gen NBN in addition to Nucleus Connect, according to Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA). If retailers are unhappy with the offering from one wholesale provider, they have the option of switching to another.
Unlike the NBN, the speed plans start at 25Mbps down, not 12Mbps down, with 73 percent of the plans offered by telcos being for 200Mbps downloads and up to 1Gbps.
At the same time, IDA has reported that prices for broadband services in Singapore have begun to drop, with one 1Gbps plan in the market costing as low as S$49.99 per month.
After establishing the network, setting up the companies to operate the network, and getting a significant portion of the population onto the Next Gen NBN, the Singaporean government is now embarking on a 'Smart Nation' project designed to make best use of the infrastructure it now has in place.
Singapore is commencing a trial in early 2015 of a Hetergenous Network (HetNet) combining the NBN with its national wireless network to ensure seamless connectivity between the wireless network and the existing mobile telecommunications networks, to allow the mobile networks to offload traffic onto the wireless network.
The government will be deploying above-ground boxes that offer fibre connections and power, and will be used for sensor networks to collect traffic, environment and other data that can be used by the government as part of development plans.
Singapore will be conducting one such trial in Jurong Lake District later this year. This trial will involve a number of above-ground boxes, approximately 1,000 sensors across the district, and 15 different data collection trials.
Some of the trials include seamless connectivity for vehicles for fleet management, monitoring and routing; smart queue monitoring for taxi stands at shopping centres; mobile navigation for pedestrians; an autonomous buggy trial to take people between parks in the district; sensors to detect faulty street lighting; sensors to detect people smoking in prohibited areas; and sensors to detect illegal parking.
The smoking and illegal parking trials won't be aimed at fining those caught by the sensors, because the information obtained is anonymised, but will be used by the government to deploy officers into those areas at times when there are more people caught smoking or parking illegally.
The trials are being used to determine the feasibility of the technology, and whether it can be deployed more broadly. Once the trials are completed in the district, agencies will look to extend pilots to other districts.
There are no benchmarks set for the trials being conducted, but the efficiency of, for example, the officers targeting illegal parking or smokers from the trials will likely be compared to the situation before the trial.
Singapore's economy unexpectedly expanded last quarter as manufacturing declined less than initially estimated amid recoveries in advanced countries.
Gross domestic product rose an annualized 0.1 percent in the three months through June from the previous quarter, when it climbed a revised 1.8 percent, the trade ministry said in a statement today. That compares with a July estimate of a 0.8 percent contraction and the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 14 economists for a 0.3 percent drop.
'While global growth in the first quarter of the year turned out weaker than expected, recent incoming data suggest that global economic activities are recovering modestly,' the trade ministry said. Externally-oriented sectors such as finance, insurance and wholesale trade are likely to support expansion in the second half, it said.
The export-dependent Southeast Asian nation is set to benefit from a recovery in global growth, which is helping to offset higher business costs as the government pursues a plan to slow the inflow of foreign workers, boost productivity and attract new industries. The U.S. economy is improving, the euro area will benefit from an accommodative monetary policy and China has taken steps to support expansion, Singapore's trade ministry said.
'Given the slowly improving external demand for both goods and services, led by developed economies, Singapore should be on track to achieve GDP growth of about 3 percent this year,' said Song Seng Wun, a regional economist at CIMB Research in Singapore. Even so, 'the still uneven labor productivity performance suggests much work needs to be done.'
The Singapore dollar gained as much as 0.1 percent after the report. It traded little changed at 1.2502 against the U.S. currency as of 10:51 a.m. local time.
The economy expanded 2.4 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, after growing a revised 4.8 percent in the previous three months, the trade ministry said today. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey was for a 2.3 percent gain.
Manufacturing declined 15.2 percent in the second quarter from the previous three months, compared with a July estimate of a 19.4 percent contraction. Services rose 4.5 percent in the same period, while construction gained 0.3 percent.
The ministry reiterated Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's Aug. 8 forecast for 2014 growth of 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent. Separately, the estimate for non-oil domestic exports was cut to a contraction of between 1 percent and 2 percent, from an increase of 1 percent to 3 percent previously.
The GDP forecast, which is narrower than an earlier prediction of 2 percent to 4 percent, factors in downside risks from the global economy, Ow Foong Pheng, permanent secretary at the trade ministry, told reporters today. Singapore will monitor geopolitical risks, she said.
The central bank's policy stance remains appropriate and unchanged, said Jacqueline Loh, deputy managing director at the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The city state, which uses the island's dollar to manage price pressure, said in April it will maintain a modest and gradual appreciation of the currency.
While domestically-oriented sectors such as business services and information and communications are expected to remain resilient in the second half of the year, growth in some labor-intensive segments such as retail and food services may be weighed down by labor constraints, the trade ministry said.
'Growth momentum going forward will be tepid,' Irvin Seah, an economist at DBS Group Holdings Ltd. in Singapore, said in a note. 'The economy continues to be weighed down by the domestic restructuring and external uncertainties. Manufacturing has bottomed but the services sector remains a risk.'
To contact the reporter on this story: Sharon Chen in Singapore at schen462@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stephanie Phang at sphang@bloomberg.net Iain McDonald, Rina Chandran
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