Editor’s Note
by Haniva Sekar Deanty, Managing Editor - TAF
This week’s Pacific Corridor issue looks at markets where outcomes increasingly depend on how well two sides respond to one another.
In Singapore, the final quarter of 2026 will test whether major new housing launches can still draw strong demand as buyers become more selective, placing greater pressure on developers to get pricing, location and timing right.
In Ho Chi Minh City, a rise in business suspensions and dissolutions points to mounting pressure on smaller firms, even as new enterprises continue to enter the market and officials maintain confidence in the city’s broader growth outlook.
Meanwhile, we revisit the Philippines as it prepares for the 15% Global Minimum Tax, where the government faces its own balancing act: protecting tax revenues while ensuring that investment incentives remain competitive under a changing international tax regime.
Whether between developers and buyers, businesses and market conditions, or taxation and investment, neither side of the equation operates alone. Sometimes, it really does take two to tango.
Singapore 🇸🇬
Singapore's Q4 Launch Wave Will Show Whether Demand Survived the Cooldown
by Ryan
Singapore’s private housing market is about to face its most consequential test of the year. Thomson Reserve, a 1,268-unit development jointly built by UOL Group, Singapore Land Group and CapitaLand Development on the former Thomson View site in District 20, opens its sales preview on October 3, with a public launch expected roughly two weeks later (Thomson Reserve). Around the same time, City Developments Limited is preparing to bring the 570-unit Lucerne Grand to market at Lakeside Drive, beside Jurong Lake Gardens (Jamus Property). Together with a cluster of smaller projects, these launches will determine whether developers can still generate strong turnout after a year in which momentum has clearly cooled.
The headline numbers explain why so much attention rides on the fourth quarter. Developers sold 4,885 new private homes, excluding executive condominiums, in the first seven months of 2026, an 11.6% decline from 5,527 units over the same period last year. But the number of units launched fell even further, down 28.7% to 4,516 from 6,334, which means the sales dip reflects a thinner launch calendar more than a genuine retreat in appetite. The sales-to-launch ratio actually climbed to roughly 1.08, above the five-year average of 1.05 and the first reading past 1.0 for a January-to-July period since 2022.
What has shifted is buyer behavior at the point of sale. Launch-weekend take-up rates averaged just under 55% for projects launched in July, well below the 70%+ norm of recent years. July itself illustrated the split: Dunearn House in the Core Central Region and Lentor Gardens Residences in the suburbs both opened to respectable but unspectacular results, selling 56% and 54% of their units respectively over opening weekend. Prices, meanwhile, are still climbing, just more slowly. The Urban Redevelopment Authority’s private residential price index rose 0.5% quarter on quarter in the second quarter, down from 0.9% in the first, bringing the first-half gain to 1.4% against 1.8% a year earlier.
None of this points to a market in distress. Singapore’s government has kept the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty, loan-to-value limits and total debt servicing ratio unchanged since April 2023, even as it has pushed Government Land Sales supply to 9,320 confirmed units for 2026, more than 50% above the past decade’s annual average. That combination, tight demand-side rules alongside generous new supply, has produced a soft landing: prices are still rising, but launches are no longer guaranteed to clear regardless of price or location.
That distinction, between a market that rewards everything and one that rewards the right things, is becoming the defining feature of real estate cycles across Southeast Asia. Malaysia’s revival rests on affordability and policy support, Indonesia’s on demographic breadth, Thailand’s on ease of foreign ownership, while Singapore increasingly competes on institutional discipline and supply transparency. As each market moves past its own version of easy, broad-based growth, it is the developers who study their buyers rather than the cycle, and the buyers who study the unit rather than the headline, who will still be standing when the tide goes out.
Ryan is a final-year finance student at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) with experience across venture capital, venture debt, and business development. He also holds a diploma in Law and Management from Temasek Polytechnic. His interests lie in how emerging technologies and economic trends shape business ecosystems and regional development in Asia.
Vietnam 🇻🇳
Ho Chi Minh City's Revolving Door
by Hang Nguyen, in Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City’s economy is exhibiting a notable structural pattern in 2026: a growing imbalance between the rate at which businesses enter the market and the rate at which they leave it. In the first eight months, more than 43,000 enterprises exited the city’s market, representing a 24.4 percent increase over the same period last year. Of this total, 9,703 enterprises completed formal dissolution procedures, a 164 percent increase, while a further 33,390 enterprises suspended operations on a temporary basis.
By comparison, 38,253 new enterprises registered over the same period, while a further 13,582 businesses resumed operations. Nguyen Khac Hoang, Head of the Municipal Statistics Office, characterized the current entry-to-exit ratio as approximately 10 to 8, a figure that compares unfavorably with the national ratio of roughly 10 to 6.
Several underlying factors appear to account for this trend. Pham Binh An, Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Development Studies, attributed the difficulty primarily to small and medium-sized enterprises, citing a shortage of new orders, weakening consumer demand, elevated logistics costs, and constrained access to capital. Although interest rates have eased in accordance with government directives, they remain comparatively burdensome for smaller firms. Limited capacity to accommodate digital and green transformation requirements has further compounded these pressures.
A separate administrative factor also warrants consideration. Officials have indicated that a substantial share of the increase in formal dissolutions stems from a nationwide campaign, led by the Ministry of Finance, to clean up long-dormant tax identification records. Many of the enterprises now completing dissolution procedures had, in practice, ceased operations years earlier without formally closing their tax files. As authorities have accelerated review of these dormant accounts, a considerable backlog is now being processed, inflating the reported dissolution figures without necessarily reflecting a deterioration in current business conditions.
This administrative explanation, however, accounts for only part of the pattern observed. The 33,390 enterprises that suspended operations, an increase of 7.82 percent, more plausibly reflect present-day cost and demand pressures rather than the resolution of historical administrative backlogs. This assessment is further supported by export growth of 7.8 percent in Ho Chi Minh City, which trailed the national growth rate of 22.8 percent, alongside industrial production growth that likewise lagged the nationwide figure. Taken together, these indicators suggest that the exit trend reflects genuine strain on the private sector’s smaller and less capitalized enterprises, rather than statistical artifact alone.
Municipal authorities maintain that the trend does not jeopardize the city’s double-digit growth target for the year, pointing to offsetting indicators such as a 167 percent increase in foreign direct investment and budget revenue that has exceeded projections. At the same time, officials have proposed measures to simplify dissolution procedures and offset the costs associated with formally exiting the market, an implicit acknowledgment that the process of closing a business remains administratively burdensome in its own right.
Overall, the available evidence points to a pattern of elevated business turnover rather than outright contraction. New enterprises continue to enter the market at a steady pace, but a growing proportion of existing firms, particularly smaller enterprises with limited financial reserves, are electing to suspend or discontinue operations in the face of sustained cost pressure, tightened credit conditions, and uncertain demand.
Hang is a young researcher with academic experience in Vietnam and the United States. She has previously worked in public relations at the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City and the YSEALI Academy. Her research focuses on ASEAN centrality in the evolving Asia-Pacific landscape, with particular attention to Vietnam’s approach to trade, regional cooperation, and political economy in the face of external power dynamics and global volatility.
The Philippines 🇵🇭
Global Minimum Tax (GMT) Could Reshape Philippine Tax Incentives for Multinational Enterprises (MNEs)
by Arianne De Guzman, in Bulacan
The Philippines is moving toward the implementation of the 15% Global Minimum Tax (GMT) as tax collections are projected to increase by 9% annually until 2028, according to the Department of Finance (DOF) on Monday, 17 August. While the country aligns its tax system with the international rules, the Marcos administration will need to balance attracting investments through tax incentives with protecting government tax revenues.
Since November 2023, the Philippines has been a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base-Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). One of its key initiatives is the GMT under the Two-Pillar Solution. Under this framework, the Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) Rules generally apply to large multinational enterprises (MNEs) with annual revenues of at least EUR750 million in at least two of the last four years. The rules establish a 15% effective tax rate (ETR) on a jurisdictional basis.
This does not mean that all Philippine companies will suddenly pay a 15% tax. Instead, when an in-scope MNE’s jurisdictional ETR falls below the 15% after under the GloBE rules, an additional “top-up tax” may be imposed
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to bring the rate closer to 15%. For the country, this could strengthen tax collection by limiting the ability of MNEs to reduce their ETR through tax incentives and other mechanisms.
This creates a policy trade-off. Higher tax revenues could strengthen government finances, but making incentives less valuable could affect the Philippines’ ability to attract foreign investment. Conversely, maintaining incentives without assessing their economic returns could limit potential revenue gains.
The CREATE MORE Act provides one possible direction through its Enhanced Deductions Regime (EDR). Under the EDR, registered business enterprises are subject to a 20% corporate income tax on income from registered activities while receiving additional deductions for qualified expenses. Compared with other incentives that significantly reduce the ETR, the EDR supports business activity while keeping the ETR above the 15% minimum.
The proposed Qualified Domestic Minimum Top-up Tax (QDMTT) could also allow the Philippines to collect the applicable top-up tax domestically, instead of allowing another jurisdiction to collect it under the GloBE rules. As of July 2026, the DOF convened an interagency technical working group (TWG), with 5 sub-technical groups, to lead the drafting of legislation and prepare the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) systems. The Marcos administration targets implementation to begin on 1 January 2027, with tax collection expected in 2028. Since the legislation has yet to be enacted, the treatment of existing Philippine tax incentives remains an important area to monitor.
Large MNEs should assess whether the GMT could reduce the value of their existing Philippine tax incentives and quantify any potential top-up tax. They should also track policy developments on how incentives can be structured to continue supporting investment while remaining compliant with the GMT.
The DOF and investment promotion agencies, such as the Board of Investments (BOI) and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), should provide clear guidance and outlook on how the GMT will interact with existing tax incentives and whether these incentives will remain effective until their expiration. The Marcos administration should also assess GMT-compatible incentives, including expenditure-based and investment-linked incentives, to preserve the Philippines’ ability to attract MNEs without simply reducing their ETR below 15%.
The GMT is shifting the focus of tax incentives from tax savings toward investment-driven incentives. Tax incentives may still be a key consideration, but GMT implementation may focus on rewarding activities that create economic value in the Philippines.
Arianne has experience in policy research at De La Salle University’s Jesse M. Robredo Institute of Governance, where she contributed to projects on systemic reform. She earned a degree in Political Science from Colegio de San Juan de Letran. Currently, she works in government relations, specializing in advocacy strategy, legislative monitoring, and stakeholder engagement. Beyond her professional work, she is actively involved in youth development and grassroots initiatives through the Rotaract Club of Santa Maria.
Editorial Deadline 07/09/2026 11:59 PM (UTC +8)
