Johor-S'pore SEZ of greater relevance amid challenging global economy: Alvin Tan

It allows both sides to tap complementary strengths, better compete for investments

- Ovais Subhani Senior Business Correspondent

The precarious global economic environment amplifies the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone's (JS-SEZ) underlying proposition which is to allow the Republic and Malaysia to jointly better compete for global investments, said Minister of State for Trade and Industry Alvin Tan.

While the global economy has held up well as exporters frontloaded their shipments to the US to get ahead of the actual imposition of tariffs, it will eventually suffer when new orders start to dry up in the coming months, he said on Sept 18 at an event in Singapore.

This may well be in sight, as he cited an 11.3 per cent drop in Singapore's non-oil domestic exports in August, after months of outperformance.

Experts say shipments were weaker because the rush to ship final orders before the US tariffs kicked in has started to taper.

"Therefore, we want to be very clear-eyed. We know that the economic situation is precarious, and we may be going into winter," Mr Tan said at the event, jointly organised by professional services firm KPMG in Singapore and the British Chambers of Commerce in Singapore and Malaysia.

Also, it is not just the countryspecific tariffs that may impact orders, but also potential sectoral tariffs on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, he added.