Catch the latest news reports on The Big Story, The Straits Times' weekday online news programme.

About 1,600 dormitories that can house about 440,000 migrant workers will be regulated under a single law from April 1 next year, to help the authorities contain disease outbreaks more quickly and potentially improve living standards within such facilities.

The Foreign Employee Dormitories Act (Feda) will be extended to cover smaller dormitories with seven beds or more. It currently applies only to 53 larger dorms that accommodate 1,000 or more workers - these dorms have 256,000 beds in all.

The move could also pave the way for improved living standards to be implemented across existing dorms, both large and small, though the transition to these requirements is still a work in progress.

Separately, e-commerce sales in Singapore are expected to reach US$14 billion (S$19.6 billion) by 2027, despite slower growth seen in 2022 amid inflationary pressures and supply chain disruptions, according to a report released by Facebook parent Meta and Bain & Company on Tuesday.

This forecast reflects the continued optimism regarding South-east Asia's long-term growth outlook, which is underpinned by the steady growth of the digital consumer population in the region.

Mr Damian Kim, Singapore managing director, Meta, shares more about the findings of the study.