Singapore stock market doesn’t need global champions, just big ambitions

SOME months ago, a reader wrote in to lament the dearth of global champions on the Singapore Exchange . Excepting local bank DBS and flag-carrier Singapore Airlines , he said, there were no global brands worth talking about.

Speaking in Parliament earlier this month, Second Minister for Finance Chee Hong Tat seemed to agree.

He said that state investor GIC “can already invest in appropriate Singapore companies if these companies have a global footprint and generate good returns” – the implication of that being that GIC hasn’t invested because Singapore companies don’t meet those criteria.