Singapore bank lending down for fifth month in July

Singapore

SINGAPORE's bank lending extended its slide for the fifth straight month in July, dipping 0.2 per cent to S$678.7 billion from the previous month on general weakness in business loans.

On a month-on-month basis, loans to businesses were down 0.3 per cent to S$424.2 billion in July on weaker loans to manufacturing, transport, business services and others, preliminary data from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) showed on Monday.