Singapore has just added another accolade to her list of international recognition.

According to JLL’s latest City Momentum Index (CMI), Singapore is the only city in the Asia-Pacific region, and one of only two globally, to possess the attributes for rapid growth in the short-term while, at the same time, position her well to benefit from the rapid technological shift in the global economy over the longer term of at least ten years.

Note: JLL’s CMI measures 131 cities’ short-term socio-economic and commercial real estate momentum
over a three-year horizon, together with their future-proofing capabilities.
Source: JLL CMI 2018

Short-term momentum

The short-term growth of Singapore’s urban economy and real estate markets has been ranked by JLL to be the 26th most dynamic globally in the latest CMI.

Singapore has seen a pick-up in short-term momentum across most measures included in the CMI over the last year. In particular, economic growth, which improved from 2.4% in 2016 to 3.6% in 2017, is widely expected to stay above 3% in 2018. According to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s Global Investment Trends Reports, Singapore is the eighth largest investment destination globally in 2017, attracting an estimated USD 58 billion worth of foreign direct investments in 2017, up from USD 50 billion in 2016.

This economic momentum has bolstered real estate performance. Net absorption of Grade A office space in the CBD more than doubled in 2017, spurring a stronger and earlier-than-expected rent recovery. This is foreseen to be sustained and Singapore could record the largest rental growth of any major office markets in 2018.

Investor activity has also been buoyant, with transactions involving real assets and land worth above USD 3.8 million apiece (including residential) growing nearly 60% to USD 31 billion in 2017.

Long-term momentum

Singapore’s robust educational system and proactive government policies have elevated her future-proofing score and ranking to the 29^th  among 131 cities.

Her strategy of supplementing long-established strengths in hardware research and manufacturing with the encouragement of the software development sector has placed her well to benefit from the rapid technological shift in the global economy.

Already, Singapore is the regional headquarters for several of the world’s largest technology companies, including Microsoft, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Airbnb, and is home to the R&D centres for Google, HCL and Infosys. The city state also has one of Asia’s largest tech start-up scenes.

The government’s commitment to fostering new technology such as the piloting of NuTonomy – the world’s first autonomous taxi service – is further seen as positioning the city state robustly for the future. Her two institutions of higher learning, Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore, are the region’s two top-ranking universities and will ensure a pipeline of talent to maintain her research stronghold.

Conclusion

Given the increasingly turbulent political and economic climates, being in this sweet spot of the global top 30 for both short- and long-term dynamism allows Singapore to offer companies and investors a unique proposition i.e. the delivery of short-term returns on their investments with the potential for sustainability into the longer term.

This has certainly upped Singapore’s ante as a safe haven for businesses and investors.

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