The Business Times, Friday, May 15, 2009 SINGAPORE NEWS 9

US move SAF raises officer retirement age to 50

The SAF will also graduate studies at local universi- challenging. But officers in the As for uniformed regulars,

to rein in
ties.
introduce a new Announcing these and other
3rd Warrant Officer rank changes to career schemes for of-
ficers and regulars yesterday,
By LEE U-WEN Deputy Prime Minister and De-
3rd Generation SAF do need
more time for ground training,
technology education and oppor-
tunities for personal develop-
ment,” he told reporters during a
they can benefit from a new Mili-
tary Domain Experts Scheme to
help them develop expertise in
crucial military domains such as
engineering, nursing and intelli-

oil trades
THE Singapore Armed Forces
(SAF) will raise the retirement
age for officers from 45 to 50 by
March next year, to retain their
leadership abilities and experi-
fence Minister Teo Chee Hean
said the move will help make the
SAF more attractive in its ongo-
ing bid to recruit, groom and re-
tain talent.
visit to Sembawang Air Base.
“Instead of retiring in their
mid-40s, SAF officers will there-
fore have an extended, fuller and
more rewarding career till age
50.”
gence. The retirement age for this
scheme is 60.
“Military domain experts will
work with cutting-edge systems,
receive more academic and pro-
fessional upgrading opportuni-

may boost
ence longer.
Warrant officers will also have
wider job scopes and responsibili-
ties, and will have more opportu-
nities to upgrade themselves pro-
On raising officers’ retirement
age to 50, Mr Teo said today’s
SAF continues to require “for-
ward-looking and vigorous leader-
ship”.
To allow more specialists to
move up the ranks faster, the SAF
will introduce a new 3rd Warrant
Officer rank so those with high
ability can become warrant offic-
ties, as well as attractive market
based remuneration,” said
Mr Teo.
“Military domain experts with
diplomas will have opportunities Mr Teo: Says officers will have

S’pore
fessionally and academically “We will keep the officer ca- ers as early as the end of their to upgrade their skills and qualifi- an extended, fuller and more
through sponsorships for post- reer compact, fast-paced and sixth year in service. cations through degree level.” rewarding career till age 50

Its importance and

liquidity will rise
by avoiding
over-regulation
[SINGAPORE] As regulators
in the world’s top oil trad-
ing hubs move to tighten
rules and boost transparen-
cy in opaque markets, Sin-
gapore may gain impor-
tance and liquidity as it
stands by its pledge to let in-
dustry regulate itself.
US President Barack
Obama’s administration
moved on Wednesday to ex-
ert more control on
over-the-counter (OTC) de-
rivatives markets, propos-
ing measures that could de-
ter some of the oil sector’s
more lucrative trading prac-
tices, such as taking bigger
or strategic positions in less
liquid markets.
But neither those plans
nor a tepid call by Asian
and Middle East energy offi-
cials for more oversight are
likely to shake Singapore’s
trust in free markets.
Coupled with newly
planned oil futures con-
tracts and more OTC swaps
clearing mechanisms, the
lure of a more lightly regu-
lated physical market could
heighten Singapore’s draw
for investment banks, trad-
ers and oil companies who
are betting that commodity
trade will remain a bright
spot, recession or no.
“To the extent that Singa-
pore authorities seek to en-
courage liquidity by main-
taining open access to the
market and supporting
clearing mechanisms, we
believe this to be a positive
step in enhancing the coun-
try’s position as a commodi-
ty trading hub,” said a sen-
ior trader with European
oil trading firm Trafigura.
Singapore officials say
they see little use in follow-
ing the United States in im-
posing sterner rules to
check speculation and vola-
tility, measures meant in
part to assuage fears over
investment funds’ sway on
prices when oil spiked last
summer.
“In today’s economic cli-
mate, there is a tendency to
over-regulate market be-
haviour to gain short-term
stability,” said Chong Lit
Cheong, chief executive of
International Enterprise.
“However, this may not be
desirable in the mid to long
term,” he told Reuters last
month.
To an extent this ap-
proach reflects an acknowl-
edgement that it would be
hard to control a market in
which much of the actual
trade takes place well be-
yond Singapore’s borders,
although most major indus-
try players base their trad-
ing teams here.
While the growth of
clearing houses that all but
eliminate counterparty risk
in OTC trades is viewed as
a positive, many traders
fret that related efforts to
boost supervision and tight-
More support for top athletes to shoot for Olympic glory
ening up position limits By LEE U-WEN The first six athletes medal, ending Singapore’s equalling an Olympic and training and develop- much higher, so we need a
could backfire by curtailing FRESH from last year’s sil- have already been identi- 48-year wait for a medal. record at last year’s Singa- ment sub-committee, said longer-term plan for our
liquidity. ver medal triumph at the fied as having the potential Tao Li, meanwhile, pore Open Shooting Cham- the OPP is an “additional athletes. We are getting
The trend is not entirely Beijing Olympics, Singa- to win medals at the next Ol- made waves in the pool as pionships. support mechanism” to ready to host the Youth Ol-
new: US authorities ympics, or the potential for the first Singapore swim- Speaking at a media help athletes push for Olym- ympic Games, we have won
pore has already put in
cracked down on power significant achievement. mer to enter an Olympic fi- briefing on the OPP, Senior pic success. an Olympic medal, so we
place plans to unearth its
and gas trade after the Cali- They are paddlers Feng nal, eventually finishing Parliamentary Secretary “We hope this pro- are hungrier than before.”
next medallist – for the Lon-
fornia and Enron crises, Tianwei, Wang Yuegu, Sun fifth in the women’s 100m for Community Develop- gramme will provide more The OPP will comple-
don Games in 2012.
and on oil trade following
An Olympic Pathway Beibei and Yu Mengyu, butterfly finals. And her ment, Youth and Sports motivation for our athletes ment existing high-perform-
sporadic leveraged trading
Programme (OPP) has been swimmer Tao Li and shoot- teammate 18-year-old Jas- Teo Ser Luck said more ath- to fulfil their Olympic ambi- ance programmes offered
plays in which companies
set up for top athletes, who er Jasmine Ser. mine Ser is one of Singa- letes could join the scheme tions and realise our vision by the Singapore Sports
would effectively corner the
will receive extra funding The women’s table ten- pore’s biggest success sto- later on provided they meet of developing a sports insti- Council for national ath-
market in benchmark
crude. and support in specialised nis team made history at ries in shooting, having the eligibility criteria. tute to groom more elite ath- letes. Mr Teo said the exact
While trading practices areas such as sports sci- last year’s Olympics when won gold at the 2007 SEA Mr Teo, who chairs the letes,” he said. funding for the OPP is still
tamed significantly as regu- ence and sports medicine. it brought home the silver Games in Thailand and OPP’s steering committee “Our standards now are being worked out.
lators began scrutinising
these practices, trade in Sin-
gapore has continued much
as usual, with regular but
not high-profile binges or
trade strategies that might
raise eyebrows in the West.
Reflecting the relatively
more moderate views in
Asia, Asian consumer na-
tions and Middle East oil
producers mustered only a
mildly worded call for “fur-
ther harmonised actions
such as (the) introduction
of position limits” at their
biennial meeting in April,
despite speculation being a
topic of much debate.
Not that Singapore trad-
ers are free from trade lim-
its after last autumn’s cred-
it crisis drove large vol-
umes of previously bilateral
OTC swaps trade onto clear-
ing houses, which IE’s Mr
Chong said are now
processing up to 80-90 per
cent of all OTC oil swap
trades, up from just a small
fraction a year ago.
“A lot of counterparties
are not willing to trade on
bilaterals in view of the
worldwide credit prob-
lems,” said a trader with a
Japanese trading house.
New York Mercantile Ex-
change’s ClearPort and Asi-
aClear, both of which take
centralised credit risk with
the clearing house rather
than individual counterpar-
ties, impose position limits.
Activity in Singa-
pore-based OTC contracts
on ClearPort surged
four-fold from a year ago to
over 6,000 contracts a day
in March.
If a proposed SGX fuel
oil contract takes off later
this year, that could raise
its share of the clearing
business by traders who
want to net out positions.
Greater liquidity with a
viable futures contract
would help address linger-
ing concerns about oil pric-
es themselves as some regu-
lators take a greater inter-
est in the process of estab-
lishing benchmark prices
in opaque physical mar-
kets.
“Exchanges and clear-
ing houses provide a rela-
tively better regulated envi-
ronment for mitigating
counterparty credit risks. A
liquid exchange is also a
more transparent pricing
mechanism,” Mr Chong
said. – Reuters