(SINGAPORE) The global economic outlook for 2012 may be gloomy - and the local one muted - but investment into Singapore in the coming year will be 'sustained around 2011 levels', said the Economic Development Board (EDB) yesterday. It expects fixed asset investments (FAI) to reach $13 billion to $15 billion in 2012 - which would most likely top 2011's $13.7 billion. The past year was already a...

(SINGAPORE) Singapore's productivity drive will embrace four more sectors - financial services, accountancy, social services and process construction and maintenance - raising the annual GDP contribution of sectors on board the national movement from 40 per cent to 55 per cent. Roadmaps for the four will be charted by the second or third quarter, said Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam...

THE first phase of Stolt- Nielsen's planned $350 million petrochemicals tankfarm investment here gets off the blocks officially today amid increased investor buzz on Jurong Island. The Norwegian group's new facility, operated by subsidiary Stolthaven Terminals, has started up with an initial 73,000 cubic metres of storage - or about a quarter of the planned 300,000 cu m it intends to build here...

GERMANY'S Lanxess is set to sign a long-term biomass feedstock deal by year-end with US biomass company Gevo, with this potentially helping Singapore's 'biomass-to-chemicals' plan take root on Jurong Island. The deal will see Gevo supplying bio-isobutanol to the German chemical company's plants, including initially to Sarnia, Canada, 'where we are currently engineering a hydration plant (to...

THE Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), has launched the SIMTech Microfluidics Foundry (SMF), a collaboration with the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM). SMF offers a range of capabilities for developing and manufacturing of specialised, low-cost microfluidic devices for...