This article will outline the key points of attention for the Singapore stock market this week.

Singapore Exchange

It's time for the annual shareholder meeting (AGM) season again. AGM is an important platform for shareholders to obtain company performance and plan updates, and it will also be their dialogue with management.

The Singapore Exchange strongly encourages shareholders to participate in AGM. Most AGMs are held from mid to late April. Shareholders who own multiple stocks may be unable to attend an AGM due to time conflicts.

The regulatory body of the exchange, SGX RegCo, now requires large listed companies (i.e. companies with a market value of billions of dollars) to avoid AGM time conflicts with other blue chip companies as much as possible.

SGx RegCo will assist shareholders in participating by maintaining the AGM calendar. Simply put, if the AGM dates of two companies conflict, the second company should try to choose different dates and/or times so that shareholders can participate in both AGMs.

The exact details of these arrangements will be announced soon, and the implementation arrangements will also be regularly reviewed.

Jurong Lake District

The Jurong Lake District development site includes three plots of land with a total area of 6.5 hectares and a maximum buildable total floor area of 3.93 million square feet.

Earlier this week, the bidding for this vast piece of land only attracted two bids, both of which were related to the top five Asian developers. They are CapitaLand Development, City Developments Limited, Frasers Property Limited, Mitsubishi Estate, and Mitsui Fudosan. The first three companies each hold 25% of the shares, while the latter two Japanese companies each hold 12.5% of the shares.

The Urban Renewal Authority (URA) estimates that the Jurong Lake District plot can provide at least 1.57 million square feet of office space and 1700 residential units, as well as approximately 786000 square feet of retail, hotel, and public space.

Due to the huge scale of the project, it can be developed in stages. URA requires that at least 753474 square feet of office space and 600 residential units be provided in the first phase. The first phase components of the office space should be completed around 2028.

Singapore factory output data

According to data from the Economic Development Board of Singapore (EDB), factory output in Singapore increased by 3.8% year-on-year in February 2024. This performance far exceeded expectations, as according to a previous survey, the predicted value was a year-on-year growth of 0.5%. Excluding the biopharmaceutical manufacturing sector, which is often more volatile, output in February still increased by 1.4% year-on-year.

The good news is that except for the computer peripherals and data storage departments, which decreased by 10.7% year-on-year, most departments achieved growth in that month. The largest increase was in the information, communication, and consumer electronics sectors, with a year-on-year increase of 30.9%. Next are semiconductors, with an increase of 2.1%, and electronic modules and components, with only 0.3%.

Another good news is that the seasonally adjusted monthly manufacturing output in February increased by 14.2%, reversing the decrease from 6.7% in January. If excluding the biopharmaceutical manufacturing industry, output in February also increased by 10%, reversing the year-on-year decline of 7.8% in January