Singapore - Singapore shares rose by 3.5 per cent on Wednesday, maintaining its

Singapore - Singapore's October tourism arrivals dropped by 8.1 per cent to 843,000 visitors from the same month a year ago, the Singapore Tourism Board said Wednesday.

Indonesia (with 157,000 visitors), China (76,000), Australia (76,000), India (67,000) and Malaysia (54,000) were Singapore's top five visitor-generating markets and accounted for 51 per cent of the total visitor arrivals for the month, it said.

Singapore  - Singapore's October manufacturing output declined 12.6 per cent compared with the same month last year due to a drop in regional demand, the Singapore Economic Development Board said Wednesday.

The export-oriented petroleum, petrochemical, precision engineering, consumer electronics and semi-conductor industries reported a drop in demand, it said.

The transport engineering, marine & offshore engineering and aerospace segments reported growth in demand, including ongoing contracts.

On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, October output shrank 12.7 per cent over September, the board said.

Singapore - Singapore share prices rose 2 per cent on Tuesday, following trends of most Asian stock markets which welcomed the US government bailout of Citigroup.

The Straits Times Index rose by 2 per cent or 32.96 points to 1,653.25.

The Singapore Exchange closed with 208 losers against 206 gainers. Volume totaled 1,090.8 million shares.

Singapore  - Singaporean President SR Nathan and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will take a 19 per cent salary cut next year, leading a civil-service-wide downward salary adjustment to offset the impact of the global financial crisis, local media reports said Tuesday.

The president and prime minister would earn 3.14 million Singapore dollars (2.07 million US dollars ) and 3.04 million Singapore dollars (2 million US dollars) with the cuts in
2009.

Singapore - Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) said it signed a consultancy agreement with the Bahrain Stock Exchange (BSE) on Monday.

SGX said its wholly owned subsidiary SGX-International would provide overall guidance on the management and operations of BSE through training and knowledge transfer which would help enhance the Manama-based bourse's competitiveness in the region by increasing its operational efficiency.