Singapore’s retail environment continues to be challenging in 3Q, and weaker-than-expected economic growth and the soft job market is likely to affect spending for the rest of the year, Cushman & Wakefield. This is also reflected by consumer confidence in Singapore, which has dived to its lowest since June 2009 based on figures from the Mastercard Index of Consumer Confidence for 1H2016. Although 2016 tourist arrivals have grown 7.2% and 6.7% y-o-y in June and July respectively, the real-estate services company notes that retail sales continued to stay in the doldrums, falling 3.2% and 2.3% y-o-y in June and July. Big ticket items saw significant declines in sales figures, and even retail sales of the food and beverage (F&B) segment registered a 7.4% y-o-y fall in July 2016. The numbers are a testament that tourists are spending less and the Great Singapore Sales (GSS) has ......