Daily Briefing: Singapore to widen range of visitors as tourism wanes; COE prices close higher across all categories

And Singapore-listed KS Energy CEO charged with market rigging offences.

From Bloomberg:

Singapore is seeking to open the door to a wider range of business and leisure visitors to boost its hard-hit tourism sector, with the return of mass travel still a long way off amidst the pandemic, according to the head of the country’s tourism agency.

The industry expects more job losses in the coming months once existing government support for rent, taxes and salaries starts tapering off, Keith Tan, chief executive officer of the Singapore Tourism Board said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Haslinda Amin. Job losses so far in the sector have been in the “very low thousands,” he said.

“Whether it is a broader range of business visitors or, for example, small groups of tightly controlled leisure visitors, all these are being considered and are on the table,” said Tan. He added the tourism board is discussing with the government to expand green lane arrangements, now in place with Malaysia and China, to a broader range of visitors.

Read more here. 

From ChannelNewsAsia:

Certificate of Entitlement (COE) premiums closed higher in the latest bidding exercise.

For Category A cars, or those 1,600cc and below with horsepower not exceeding 130bhp, premiums closed at $33,000, up from $32,699 in the last exercise. Premiums for larger and more powerful cars in Category B rose to $37,102 from $35,001.

COEs for commercial vehicles, which include goods vehicles and buses, rose to $24,100 from $23,888 in the previous bidding exercise whilst motorcycle premiums closed at $7,701, up from $6,510 in the last exercise.

Open category COEs, which can be used for any vehicle type but end up being used mainly for large cars, rose to $36,502 from $35,001.

A total of 6,194 bids were received, with a quota of 3,287 COEs available.

Read more here. 

From ChannelNewsAsia:

The CEO and chairman of mainboard-listed KS Energy Limited was charged with more than 100 counts of market rigging offences, with the company saying in a stock exchange filing that its business and operations remain unaffected.

Kris Taenar Wiluan, a 71-year-old Indonesian citizen and Singapore permanent resident, was charged with 112 counts under Section 197 of the Securities and Futures Act (SFA), which deals with false trading and market rigging transactions, the police said in a news release.

The charge sheets state that Wiluan engaged in a course of conduct to create a misleading appearance with respect to the price of the securities of KS Energy.

According to the charge sheets, Wiluan is said to have instructed Ho Chee Yen, a 56-year-old female manager at his office, to instruct the trading representative in CIMB Securities (Singapore) servicing the account of Pacific One Energy, a company he owned and controlled, to use the account to purchase KS Energy shares.

This was reportedly done to push up the share price of KS Energy on 112 trading days between 19 December 2014 and 13 September 2016.

Read more here.