Singapore on Friday announced a sweeping ban on arrivals from mainland China as authorities toughened measures to prevent the spread of a deadly virus.

Singapore further cut its annual growth forecast on Tuesday as the escalating US-China trade war hammers exports, in another ominous sign for Asia's trade-reliant economies.

Singapore and Malaysia's leaders vowed to cooperate to solve disputes Tuesday after tensions between the neighbours over airspace and maritime boundaries, which followed a change of government in Malaysia.

They have had fractious relations since Malaysia evicted Singapore from the Malaysian Federation in 1965, ending a brief and stormy union of the former British colonies.

Singapore said Tuesday it had arrested eight Bangladeshi men who allegedly plotted to carry out terror attacks and assassinations in their home country to establish an Islamic state.

The migrant workers were arrested in April under Singapore's Internal Security Act which allows for detention without trial, the home ministry said in a statement.

Singapore disclosed Wednesday it arrested 27 Bangladeshi construction workers late last year for supporting "the armed jihad ideology of terrorist groups" and deported 26 of them.

The workers were being groomed to return to their home country to wage holy war, and some had studied booklets on assassination techniques, the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement.

Singapore on Saturday raised its security alert level following a wave of bombings and shootings in Paris that left at least 120 people dead, the interior minister said.

"These attacks show that no country is immune, even when there is a state of heightened security," Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam said in a statement.

An umbrella group of local and foreign banks in smog-hit Singapore has urged members to make "sustainable development" part of their lending requirements, stepping up pressure on companies linked to land-clearing fires in Indonesia.

The 158-member Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) on Thursday issued guidelines for the inclusion of greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, forest degradation and biodiversity loss among the criteria for approving commercial loans.

Singapore has detained two men who the government said Wednesday were planning to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group (IS).

Mohamed Shamin bin Mohamed Sidek, 29, and Muhammad Harith Jailani, 18, were detained in August under an internal security law, which allows for detention without trial, the Ministry of Home Affairs said.

Singapore's ruling People's Action Party (PAP) extended 56 years in power on Saturday after a lopsided snap election that dashed hopes of a two-party system in the city-state.

Friday's vote, which saw the party take 83 of 89 seats and nearly 70 percent of the ballots cast, stunned opponents and reversed a plunge in the PAP's share of the popular vote in 2011.

Canada, India, Singapore and Egypt are "seriously" interested in buying France's two Mistral warships, a senior official has said, after Paris scrapped a deal to sell the vessels to Russia over the Ukraine crisis.

Louis Gautier, an official who advises the prime minister on defense and security matters, also told lawmakers this week that the cost of abandoning the agreement with Russia would be at least 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) if the government did not find another buyer, according to a summary of his comments obtained by AFP Friday.