Money Matters with Hongbin Jeong and Chua Tian Tian

Singapore’s architecture industry is facing an increasing shortage of newcomers. Long working hours with insignificant pay is one of the main issues that discourage fresh graduates from staying in the profession in the long run.  Prime Time’s Timothy Go and Bharati Jagdish spoke with Budi Susanto, General Manager (Southeast Asia), LeapThought and Tan Jing Min, Product Consultant and Subject Matter Expert (Architecture), LeapThought to find out more. 

Out of the 67 recipients of this year’s Bib Gourmand award, nine of them are new to the list. In The Straits Times The Big Story, Multimedia journalist Hairianto Dirman spoke with Food correspondent Eunice Quek to discuss what it means for restaurants and hawker stalls to be included in the list.

The majority of leaders in Singapore feel a loss in their management abilities at the companies. Plus, the hybrid working mode even adds on difficulties for the managers since it is more complicated to know and meet the expectations of the team members.  In The Spotlight, Prime Time’s Timothy Go and Bharati Jagdish spoke with Joanna Lim, Business Group Lead, Modern Work & Security, Microsoft Singapore to find out more. 

Investors are expecting a data-heavy week in the US, including factory orders data and the final S&P Global U.S services Purchasing Managers Index. The data will build on personal consumption figures out last week to paint a clearer picture of how the economy reacted to earlier interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve. In Market View, Prime Time’s Finance Presenter Chua Tian Tian spoke with Dr Cai Daolu, Visiting Senior Fellow at the Department of Strategy and Policy at the NUS Business School to make better sense of those numbers.

With a rising temperatures, there is an need for offices to be facilitated with cooling systems to serve returning staff. Yet, how do we cool offices without heating up the planet? Prime Time’s Timothy Go and Bharati Jagdish spoke with Deb Noller, CEO and Co-Founder of Switch Automation to find out more.   

A G20 meeting is going to be held in Bali this week with the attendance of Russian FM Sergei Lavrov regardless of opposition from the US due to its war in Ukraine. Furthermore, such a battle is also expected to influence Japan elections taking place on this coming Sunday. Lastly, the world covid-19 situation will also be updated.  In The Spotlight, Prime Time’s Timothy Go and Bharati Jagdish spoke with Pete Ross, Producer/Presenter, BBC to find out more. 

Investors are keenly watching the latest developments in China. Earlier, Beijing was rolling back to its Covid-19 control to better support its ailing economy. Quarantine period for overseas travellers, for one, had shrunk to 7 days from the 14 to 21 days previously. Digital travel passes will also no longer indicate whether a person has visited high-risk cities - further boosting domestic travels. But to what extent would such relaxation of Covid-19 measures boost the world's second largest economies? To what extent will a recent flare up of Covid-19 cases in eastern China throw a spanner in the works? In Market View, Prime Time’s Finance Presenter Chua Tian Tian spoke with Iris Pang, Chief Economist of Greater China, ING for more.

Fresh evacuation orders were issued for thousands of Sydney residents on Monday after relentless rain flooded several suburbs in Australia’s largest city. Officials are warning of more wild weather to come. In The Straits Times’ The Big Story, Multimedia journalist Hairianto Dirman spoke with Australia correspondent Jonathan Pearlman to find out more.