Singapore ranked 8th most expensive city for expats

[Jasonkoh82]

Here's a video clip by our respectable founding father of the Republic Of Singapore - 22 July, 2011

Lee Kuan Yew: Got to accept discomfort of foreign talent

http://www.razor.tv/site/servlet/seg...ews/66702.html

[Jasonkoh82]

Govt will improve bus, train service: PM
Extracted from The Straits Times
Jul 24, 2011
By Zakir Hussain

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last night pledged that the Government will improve the public transport service year by year, even as debate over a possible fare hike heats up.

The Government will also make sure that any fare hikes are reasonable, justifiable and not excessive, Mr Lee said at a National Day celebration in his Teck Ghee ward.

'From time to time, fare increases cannot be helped,' he said. But there are many schemes to help those in need, he added.

Members of the public are unhappy that transport operators are seeking a fare increase even though problems of over-crowding and long waiting times for buses and trains persist.

Last night, Mr Lee said: 'We will raise service standards and progressively improve them year by year... whether it's waiting times, crowding, frequency of the train services, particularly at peak hours, this is something which we will see to and improve.'

Another source of public unhappiness is that transport operators SMRT and SBS Transit want to raise fares in spite of earning good profits.

Source
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking...ry_694138.html

[Jasonkoh82]

Inflation in Singapore climbs, up 5.2% in June
Extracted from The Straits Times
Jul 25, 2011
By Magdalen Ng

INFLATION is climbing, with June's consumer price index (CPI) coming in at 5.2 per cent over the same period last year, close to January's peak levels of 5.5 per cent.

This was flagged by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) last week. Mr Ravi Menon, managing director of the MAS, said that consumer prices will be above 5 per cent over the next few months, before trending down towards the end of the year.

According to the Department Of Statistics, the main contributors for the rising inflation are housing and transport costs - which make up 25 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively, of the CPI basket that is used to track price changes.

Housing costs rose 8.8 per cent year-on-year, due to pricer accommodation and electricity tariffs. Higher petrol and car prices also saw transport costs increase by 10.4 per cent.

Only the communications component saw a decrease of 1.6 per cent, as internet subscription fees fell.

Source
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking...ry_694571.html

[Jasonkoh82]

One of the reasons why SG Cars that kind of expensive are cause by the Certificates of Entitlement (COE).

When COE inflates, your ride deflates?
By Yahoo! Singapore | Fit to Post Autos – Mon, Jul 25, 2011

By David Pang

The rise of prices of the Certificates of Entitlement (COE) defies logic. The results are astonishing, considering that the COE price of a single Category A could have bought you a second car three years ago. But are Singaporeans making blind purchases during these unpredictable times?

I have often encountered people breaking the ice with me with the question: "How's the car market now?" Of course, there are questions to be answered, but the issue is not about when the COE market will dip. It's about what this situation is going to bring us in the next five years.

The manufacturing cost of an average Japanese sedan is an average S$20,000, and the COE that you have just paid for ($72,501 for cars above 1,600cc) is about three bags "fool" of it. It is an enormously inflated figure, which some have justified by saying that hacking away at the Quota allocation tree is fundamental in slowing down the rise in the vehicle population in Singapore. Naturally, not one of us likes this arrangement at all. Or do we?

It seems that, over time, we are getting used to this inflation. We are gradually accepting the practice of paying more for the entitlement to own a car locally, rather than paying for the symbolic value of the car itself. Sales of brand new cars are slackening, while the pre-owned market is booming. Vehicle financing institutions are showing more support than ever in raising their valuation of the market prices of vehicles and granting higher loan facilities to the consumers. How then does this judgment help in administrating a healthy control on the vehicle population in Singapore?

Buy a Japanese hatchback now and finance it on a 10-year loan tenure, and you will possibly find yourself embroiled in a $60,000 debt five years later. The glitch is, would your ride be worth $60,000 on the open market five years down the road?

My answer is likely to be "No", because one of my personal friends bought a five-year-old unit at a reasonable price of $36,000 only recently. So you see, there is little logic to the market right now.

David Pang is a car salesman and a freelance writer with Burnpavement.com.
For the latest updates in automotive news and car reviews, become a fan on Burnpavement.com's Facebook page.

Source
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/fit-t...070353788.html