The city-state's culture minister said the subsidy given to the pop icon “was not as high as expected”.
Singapore has downplayed the amount of subsidy paid to Taylor Swift after the city-state's efforts to attract the pop icon sparked complaints from its regional neighbors.
Singapore's Culture Minister Edwin Tong said on Monday that speculation about the size of the grant was “inaccurate”.
“I can say that it is not accurate and it is not as high as expected, but due to commercial secrecy, we cannot reveal the specific amount and conditions of the subsidy,” Tong said in Parliament in response to questions from lawmakers.
Tong said the government was also confident that the economic benefits of Swift's six concert dates in the city would be “significant and exceed the amount of the subsidy”.
Tong's remarks come after Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin told a business forum last month that Singapore had paid Swift between $2 million and $3 million on the condition that she not perform in any another country in Southeast Asia.
“If I had known this, I would have brought the shows to Thailand,” Srettha was quoted as saying in the Bangkok Post. “Concerts can generate added value for the economy. »
Philippine lawmaker Joey Salceda last week called on Manila to question Singapore over the subsidy, saying such behavior is “not what good neighbors do.”
Singapore officials previously admitted offering Swift a subsidy to come to the city-state, without disclosing the terms, because of the benefits it would have on tourism-related sectors such as accommodation, retail retail and catering.
Singapore's Channel News Asia reported that hotels and airlines saw demand for flights and accommodation on concert dates increase by up to 30 percent.
Aside from four concerts in Japan last month, Swift's Singapore concerts are the only stops she will make in Asia as part of her The Eras tour.
The sold-out concerts, which run until March 9, bring together some 300,000 fans, including those from neighboring countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.
Fast, one of the most successful musical artists of all time with 14 Grammy Awards and hundreds of millions of albums sold worldwide, gave the first of his concerts in Singapore on Saturday, after concluding the Australian leg of his tour last week with a performance in front of 81,000 fans at Accor Stadium in Sydney.