Singapore attracted 8.8 billion Singapore dollars (about 5.7 billion U.S. dollars) in fixed asset investment last year, a 3.5 percent increase over 2005, the government said Monday.

The investments are expected to add a record 26,800 new jobs and contribute a record value-added 13.4 billion Singapore dollarsto the country's gross domestic product (GDP) when fully implemented, according to a statement issued by the Economic Development Board (EDB).

Job creation was the highest since 2001 and the expected value-added was the best for more than ten years, the EDB said.

For 2007, the economic outlook worldwide and for Singapore is buoyant, although economic growth is expected to moderate, the EDBsaid.

It projects that Singapore will attract fixed asset investments of 8.5-9.0 billion Singapore dollars and value-added investments of 11.0-11.5 billion Singapore dollars this year.

It also expects to attract projects that will create 25,000 jobs.

According to the EDB, 450 projects were committed last year, and a number of projects secured were worth more than 1 billion Singapore dollars in terms of fixed asset investments, such as a 4.7 billion Singapore dollars flash memory fabrication by the U.S. Intel and Micron and a 1.3 billion Singapore dollars disk media factory by the U.S. tech giant Seagate.

"These substantial fixed asset investments projects further anchor our key industry clusters and investors in Singapore," the EDB said, "They represent long term commitments and reflect Singapore's competitiveness as a global manufacturing hub."

Source:Xinhua