Minted in Singapore, coined for the world

Singapore

WHEN the latest Singapore coins arrived last year, the Singapore Mint had a rude shock.

The Singapore Mint - a subsidiary of mainboard-listed Sembcorp Industries - had previously produced most of the local circulation coins here but, unknown to it, the new coins were minted in Canada.

Still, anomalous as the switch to a foreign mint might have seemed for a national currency, it was perhaps an inevitable eventuality since the privatisation of the Singapore Mint in 1980s.

"It is not something unusual for a government to give it to a foreign mint," conceded Singapore Mint director Yip Pak Ling. "One of the key reasons I can understand or assume is that if you have to laun…