Trouble Building in Singapore

Investors bemoaning Singapore banks' fraught relationship with oil-services companies may be overlooking another brewing area of trouble -- building and construction firms.

Property developers in the city-state seem fine but their contractors are hurting after almost five years of real-estate curbs. Suppliers are getting worried. Some 60 percent of respondents to a survey by global credit insurance group Atradius said they expected customers to become less timely about payments this year. Average days payable outstanding, a measure of how long a company takes to reimburse its suppliers, has risen to 104 from six two years ago, based on data from 16 publicly traded firms in the industry tracked by Bloomberg.