[Contributed by Tang] It has just been reported that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) recorded a loss of S$7.4 billion in the last financial year. The MAS director said that actually they had $4 billion of investment gains, but it is offset by currency exchange loss.
“The appreciation of the Singapore dollar led to a negative foreign exchange translation effect of S$8.7 billion. Total expenditure increased to S$2.8 billion, due mainly to higher interest expenses on domestic money market operations.”
CNA article
Is that all to the story?
Unfortunately, I believe that they are using this as an excuse to try and cushion their bad performance. After all, they did make less investment gains than previous years. However, their explanation is really too much.
Sure, inflation is a challenge, but how can they say that the higher interest expense on domestic money operations is a major reason? The interest rates for our bank deposits also never increase in terms of percentage.
We deserve to know more specific details. $7.8 billion loss is a huge amount. Instead of brushing it off to foreign exchange and inflation, they should be more specific about the losses. Their top management must be accountable.
