Disclaimer: Unless otherwise stated, any opinions expressed below belong solely to the author. Data sourced from Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower.
Before you ask—no, the government of Singapore hasn’t changed its policy and suddenly revealed how much money the country really has in its reserves. But as the three main organisations responsible for managing them have published their annual reports over the past month, we can make an educated (and probably fairly accurate) guess as to what the total sum is.
This, mind you, refers only to financial reserves, not the totality of all reserves, which include state land as well as state-owned buildings, the precise value of which is likely quite difficult to estimate anyway.
We’re talking about the money and other financial assets managed by GIC, Temasek and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)—money that could, for example, be used to support the Singapore dollar during periods of market stress.
Profits from these investments are used to calculate the annual Net Investment Returns Contribution (NIRC) to the budget.
Temasek
The easiest to understand is the portfolio of Temasek, which is always listed by its net value—that is, the value of all the assets that Temasek owns, minus any liabilities.
In FY2025 ending on Mar 31, 2026, its value had exceeded S$500 billion for the first time in history.
Since the pandemic of 2020, it has jumped by close to S$200 billion, or very nearly 60%. This figure has to be discounted by S$25 billion that the government reinjected into Temasek from the dividends the company paid, which do not count towards its performance.
Nevertheless, a net increase of around 50% in six years, including over 10% (S$49 billion) last year alone, is nothing to complain about.
GIC
GIC is quite a bit more opaque about its activities.
It doesn’t reveal the total amount of assets under management, and it doesn’t even report one-year return rates. Its reporting is deliberately understated, focusing on long-term returns over at least five-year periods.
Unlike Temasek, it is less invested in equities, although that is currently changing, and its share has grown to 56% last year. Traditionally, however, it preferred safer assets, which explains the visibly lower returns.
That said, an annualised 6.2% over the past decade is not bad at all.
But what about the total amount? How much money is hidden away in GIC and invested by the company all over the world? Well, the government won’t tell us, but there are some good guesses out there.
Two sources, the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute and Global SWF, both appear to be very close in their estimates, with the former putting the total AUM of GIC at US$1.18 trillion and the latter valuing it slightly lower, at US$1.16 trillion.
This translates to roughly S$1.5 trillion.
However, not all of it can be counted as Singapore’s reserves. A huge chunk of the money represents CPF contributions.
The cash from CPF is not sent to GIC directly, but instead converted to bonds, the proceeds from which only then come under GIC stewardship. Because the bonds become the government’s liability, it is obligated to fund them in every available way. It is done this way to legally protect your CPF funds with the entirety of the country’s reserves rather than just the GIC portion.
For our calculations, it means that we have to subtract at least S$676 billion, reported by CPF as the sum of all balances in Q1 2026, from the S$1.5 trillion estimate above.
Once we do that, we’re left with a still very handsome S$824 billion, which is the upper bound of the financial reserves under management by GIC (this figure is not precise, as there may be some other deductions, but it works as a general ballpark).
Combined with Temasek’s S$518 billion, we’re already over S$1.3 trillion, and we haven’t even looked at MAS yet.
Monetary Authority of Singapore
Ministry of Finance defines financial reserves as the sum of assets managed by GIC and Temasek, and the Official Foreign Reserves, held and invested by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
As of Jun 2026, the value of OFR stood at over S$551 billion. Together with the estimated S$1.3 trillion at the other two organisations, the total amount of Singapore’s financial reserves could be close to S$1.9 trillion and cross S$2 trillion in 2027.
How accurate are these figures?
The data for MAS is accurate to the dollar. Temasek reports its figures within a fairly narrow range, which depends on whether some of the unlisted assets are valued by their book value or marked to current market conditions. GIC is, officially, a total unknown.
However, we may try to use the NIRC formula to check if our calculations make sense.
The portion of reserves that counts towards NIRC is actually a bit smaller—around S$1.4 trillion. This is because MAS has to keep most of the reserve assets to match the various liabilities it has on its books.
We also know the following things about NIRC:
- It is calculated on the basis of the expected annual long-term real rate of return
- The government takes 50% of those returns
- This year’s NIRC was estimated at S$28.5 billion
That implies expected annual returns of about S$57 billion. If the pool of reserves qualifying for NIRC is roughly S$1.425 trillion, those expected returns amount to around 4% a year.
An expected annual 4% rate of return sounds highly plausible for Singapore government’s usually conservative approach, and appears to fit in the S$1.4+ trillion range of reserves qualifying for NIRC, which I mentioned above.
This is the cushion that remains profitably invested, financing about 20% of Singapore’s budgetary expenses each year. Another few hundred billion remain in MAS, together approaching nearly S$2 trillion in financial reserves that the country strengthen its resilience against financial shocks and currency market stress.
On the financial front, then, Singapore doesn’t seem to have too much to worry about. It can repel any speculative attacks on the SGD and keep taxes low thanks to a consistent flow of investment returns.
- Read other articles we’ve written on Singapore’s current affairs here.
Featured Image Credit: f11photo/ depositphotos
