Substance over ‘sweeteners’: Redesigning Singapore’s incentives for strategic growth

SINGAPORE is at a defining moment in time. Despite global volatility, the city-state secured S$14.2 billion in fixed asset investments in 2025, a 5.2 per cent increase from 2024.

Meanwhile, the playbook of headline tax cuts is being rewritten. The traditional strategy of shifting profits to very low-tax jurisdictions is becoming less effective, following the implementation of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) Pillar Two Rules – which applies a 15 per cent global minimum tax for multinational enterprises with annual revenues exceeding 750 million euros (S$1.1 billion).

As global tax rules tighten, incentives are increasingly judged less by generosity and more by design quality, economic substance and alignment with national priorities.