Daily Briefing: DBS' 5 challenges in the troubled O&G sector; 12 plots of farm land up for grabs

DBS Group Holdings Ltd believes that the oil and gas sector has several obstacles to overcome.

For context, oil prices traded at over US$110 per barrel in 2014. By the end of 2015, oil prices were down below US$40 per barrel. Prices have since recovered, but remain below US$60 per barrel thus far.

DBS Group provides financing for companies within the oil and gas sector. The prolonged decline in oil prices, shown in the diagram above, has left several of the bank’s customers in a tight spot financially.

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Twelve plots of farm land at Lim Chu Kang have been put up for sale by public tender, announced the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore’s (AVA) on Thursday (17 August).

With sizes ranging from 20,050.4 sq m to 21,239.9 sq m, nine of the 12 plots – which are intended for vegetable farming – are located at Neo Tiew Harvest Lane, one at Neo Tiew Harvest Place and two at Neo Tiew Harvest Link.

This comes after AVA announced in May that new agriculture land for food farming in Sungei Tengah and Lim Chu Kang will be put up for tender from August this year.

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Once you’ve decided to buy a property, a key step is finding a real estate agent who can help you achieve your goal. Not enlisting an agent is, in fact, one of the biggest mistakes a homebuyer can make. For that matter, the same is true if you want to offload your property.

But how exactly do you go about choosing the right agent for you? In January 2017, the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) reported that there are 1,286 licensed property agencies and 28,397 registered property agents operating in Singapore. The CEA didn’t give a breakdown of whether the agents are full-time or part-time. Nevertheless, that’s almost 30,000 candidates to choose from.

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