Editor’s note: This is general educational information about how Singapore government borrowing is structured. It is not advice, and it does not concern any particular security or investment decision. The account below rests on the official sources listed at the end.
Analysis: why the debt ratio misleads and the calendar does not
The practical use of the two-Act split is that it explains a number people misread. MOF acknowledges that Singapore’s gross debt-to-GDP ratio may appear large on its own, and argues that the measure ignores the asset side; it states that the Government has no net debt, that financial assets are well in excess of debt, and that this is part of why Singapore holds a top AAA rating from S&P, Moody’s and Fitch. That claim rests entirely on the 1992 Act’s spending prohibition. If the proceeds of SGS (Market Development), T-bills, SSGS, SSB and RMGS cannot be spent and are invested instead, then the liabilities they create have matching assets by construction, and the gross figure describes the size of an investment operation rather than the residue of past deficits.
The comparison a careful reader would make is between the two tracks rather than between Singapore and a deficit-financed sovereign. Nearly all of the outstanding stock sits under the Act where spending is barred; SINGA borrowing, on MOF’s own description, is the small proportion. That ratio, not the headline debt number, is the thing to watch, and it is observable: every SINGA issue is labelled SGS (Infrastructure) in the published calendar, so the split can be tracked auction by auction without waiting for an annual statement.
Two limits are worth stating. The calendar records what was scheduled, not what was ultimately allotted or at what yield, so it establishes the shape of supply and nothing about demand. And the safeguards under SINGA are described by MOF at the level of principle, a gross borrowing limit and a restriction to qualifying projects, without the numbers attached, so anyone wanting the actual ceiling would need the Act itself.
What the two-track design does explain is the shape of the curve. An infrastructure mandate gives the Government a reason to sell 15-year paper that market development alone would struggle to justify, while the market development mandate keeps a steady flow of short bills and mid-curve bonds coming regardless of the fiscal position. The result is a yield curve that exists because two different statutes each require it to, for reasons that have little to do with whether the Budget balanced last year.
What the documents say
Singapore runs a large and actively quoted sovereign bond market while telling anyone who asks that it does not borrow for spending. Both statements are true, and the reconciliation is statutory rather than fiscal. Two separate Acts authorise government borrowing, and the money raised under them is treated in opposite ways. Under one, the proceeds legally cannot be spent. Under the other, they can be spent, but only on a defined class of asset and inside a borrowing limit set by Parliament. Reading a Singapore Government Securities auction correctly starts with knowing which Act it sits under.
The Act under which the money cannot be spent
The Government Securities (Debt Market and Investment) Act 1992 governs the older and much larger track. The Ministry of Finance states plainly that under this Act the Government cannot spend the monies raised from Singapore Government Securities (Market Development) and Treasury bills, from Special Singapore Government Securities, from Singapore Savings Bonds, or from Reserves Management Government Securities. The proceeds are invested as part of the reserves instead, and the investment returns are described as more than sufficient to cover the debt servicing costs.
Each of those four instruments answers a different purpose. SGS (Market Development) and T-bills exist to develop the domestic debt market by providing a yield curve against which private debt securities can be priced. Singapore Savings Bonds provide a long-term savings option to individual investors. Special Singapore Government Securities are issued to the Central Provident Fund Board, carry a full Government guarantee, and pay the CPF Board a coupon pegged to the interest rates CPF members receive. Reserves Management Government Securities are the newest of the group: Parliament passed the MAS (Amendment) Bill on 11 January 2022, allowing the Monetary Authority of Singapore to subscribe for RMGS issued by the Government in exchange for transferring official foreign reserves in excess of what it needs for monetary policy and financial stability.
MOF is careful about what RMGS is not. It notes that monetary financing typically involves a central bank buying government securities on the primary market and crediting the proceeds to the government, and that the legislation permits MAS to transfer only foreign currency assets in exchange for RMGS, which removes the possibility of MAS creating Singapore dollars to fund government spending. The subscription is also not quantitative easing, because it is not a transaction with commercial banks and does not expand their balances at MAS. The size of the MAS balance sheet does not change; only the composition of its assets shifts. Before this mechanism existed, transfers of excess reserves were accompanied by a drawdown of Government deposits at MAS, which worked while the Government ran sizeable surpluses and stopped working as those surpluses declined. MAS has been making periodic transfers of excess reserves to the Government since 1981, when GIC was set up.
The Act under which the money can be spent
The Significant Infrastructure Government Loan Act 2021, known as SINGA, is the exception. MOF describes it as covering only a small proportion of Government borrowings and as the route by which the Government borrows to finance and capitalise nationally significant infrastructure, giving the Cross Island Line as an example. Borrowing under SINGA is raised within legislative safeguards that include a gross borrowing limit, and the proceeds can only be spent on qualifying nationally significant infrastructure projects. The stated rationale is spreading the cost of such assets across the multiple generations of users who benefit from them.
SGS (Infrastructure) is the instrument. Green SGS (Infrastructure), the Singapore sovereign green bonds, are a subcategory of it, issued under the Singapore Green Bond Framework, which was first launched in 2022 and last updated in January 2025. The public sector has committed to issuing up to S$35 billion of green bonds by 2030, counting both Government and statutory board issuance. The Framework lists eight categories of eligible green project, running from renewable energy and green buildings through clean transportation and sustainable water management to climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation.
A Green Bond Steering Committee chaired by the Second Minister for Finance selects projects; net proceeds must be fully allocated within two years, with unallocated amounts held in cash or short-term liquidity instruments; and the Government commits to annual allocation reporting and to impact reporting on environmental benefits. DNV provided a second party opinion on the January 2025 Framework, confirming alignment with the ICMA Green Bond Principles 2021 with the June 2022 Appendix 1, the ASEAN Green Bond Standards 2018 and the Singapore-Asia Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance of December 2023.
The split is visible in the auction record
The distinction is not buried in legislation. It is a field in the issuance calendar MAS publishes. Each scheduled issue carries a type: T-bills appear as unclassified paper, market development bonds as SGS (MD), and infrastructure bonds as SGS (Infra).
The recent calendar shows both tracks running at once and at different points on the curve. A 15-year SGS (Infrastructure) line, issue code NY25200N, was scheduled as a reopening with an auction on 28 Sep 2026, issue on 01 Oct 2026 and maturity on 01 Jul 2040. A new 5-year SGS (Market Development) line, N526100H, was scheduled for auction on 28 Oct 2026 and issue on 02 Nov 2026. Alongside them runs a dense programme of 6-month T-bill auctions, roughly fortnightly, plus a 1-year bill with an auction on 15 Oct 2026.
