Why you might want to shut your business in Singapore

[Wd40]

Nice article

http://sbr.com.sg/economy/commentary/wh ... -singapore

Property services firm Cushman & Wakefield latest report reveals an expected drop in retail rental in the coming 12 months after witnessing a decline in Q1. For now the drop appears to concentrate in the city fringe areas such as City Hall and Marina Square Centre.

"Consolidation of space among various trades has been more evident since the start of 2015. Fashion apparel and accessories brand Lowrys Farm exited the market earlier this year, while other tenants such as Marks & Spencer and Cold Storage in Centrepoint, John Little stores at Marina Square and Tiong Bahru Plaza, and Japanese department store Isetan at Wisma Atria are expected to cease operations by the second quarter of 2015," Cushman said.

To me the knock-out punch came from Isetan. The rest comes and goes during good and bad times. But mainstay such as Isetan is your unwavering tree even during a full-blown hurricane. They didn’t shut down their Wisma flagship store during 9/11, Sars, or Global Financial Crisis.

The gaining popularity of e-shopping, increasing competition along Orchard Road, and (especially) the curb of foreign-workers are redefining the concept of business challenges for the sector. And we have not even touched on the workers that you CAN hire, the job-hopping self-centred generation y and z that disappear from work after lunch or show hints of staging a walk-off after a week of employment so they can get an increment.

Why do they deserve the increment? Well, probably because we owe them a living (or so they think).

[JR8]

Jeez, the poor standard of English! Every other sentence is either like , or simply, what does this mean?

'Based on their scoring system, Singapore BOI score was +1.11.'
Based upon... Singapore's

'Importantly SMEs are expecting profits to decline from an Index Score of 5.47 from 5.54.'
Hah??

'It doesn’t help that more companies are dragging their payments in the first quarter'
Meaning?

'All the signs appear to be pointing to the same direction.'
In, in, in, the same direction!

And so it continues, and this is the SBR, the local equivalent of the FT or WSJ?

[Wd40]

Now that is another reason why you must shut down your business in Singapore.

[ecureilx]

And so it continues, and this is the SBR, the local equivalent of the FT or WSJ?

Well, the editorial team :

Publisher: Tim Charlton
Print Media Editor: Roxanne Uy
Online Media Editor: Karen Mesina
Journalist: Jason Oliver

[JR8]

Now that is another reason why you must shut down your business in Singapore.

Hehehe... the local pidgin English is a thing of endless wonder and intrigue. But coming from someone in that role (a columnist on a 'serious' newspaper) it still comes as a rather jarring surprise.

The issue of foreign grocers is an interesting one. Keep in mind almost all here is owned or franchised by the government. So to be outside of that and be a viable concern, it's usually needs to be high margin and high end ditto other sectors ... Hermes, Chanel, Cold Storage, Jason's.

Out go Carrefour, too cheap, too competitive. M+S, high quality and value.... not enough margin in it here. They've entered and exited SG a couple of times now (they used to have a shop fronting onto the square at Raffles Place). Isetan, super-prime grocers, but so many FT-JPs have left, it must be feeling the heat.

Maybe soon just NTUC, and NTUC Finest will be left.

[JR8]

And so it continues, and this is the SBR, the local equivalent of the FT or WSJ?

Well, the editorial team :
Publisher: Tim Charlton
Print Media Editor: Roxanne Uy
Online Media Editor: Karen Mesina
Journalist: Jason Oliver

All locals right?

[ecureilx]

And so it continues, and this is the SBR, the local equivalent of the FT or WSJ?

Well, the editorial team :
Publisher: Tim Charlton
Print Media Editor: Roxanne Uy
Online Media Editor: Karen Mesina
Journalist: Jason Oliver

All locals right?

yep, the names do sound 100% local

Local Australian, Local Filipina, Local Filipina, the last one got me stumped though ..

[JR8]

All locals right?

yep, the names do sound 100% local
Local Australian, Local Filipina, Local Filipina, the last one got me stumped though ..

Presumably they'll all be jailed then?
BTW My immediate local 'blue-blood' colleagues were called Henry, Jacylin, Adrian, and Kenny.

What's in a name eh?



p.s. Is the local business paper really both written and controlled by foreigner's? That surprises me.

[ecureilx]

p.s. Is the local business paper really both written and controlled by foreigner's? That surprises me.

As long as you register with MICA (or did that change that ministry name again ?) and declare the shareholders info, you can publish in Singapore. Know a few foreign publishers here.

As long as you don't break any Media law and rules...

PS, MICA became MCA now

[JR8]

This is not Cosmopolitan publishing articles about 'Your man's length'*; this is the SBR.

No?


* For which with it's handy pasta-measurer style cardboard insert it got banned, IIRC.

[Brah]

Jeez, the poor standard of English! Every other sentence is either like , or simply, what does this mean?

As with listening to the majority people speak here, that was a painful read.

The mistakes made are almost universal, and seemingly perpetual, which I still find remarkable for a country where English is supposed to be the primary language.

[brunoeazzurra]

Ho hum.

If your business is bleeding, shut it down or not. If it's not, keep going. Who is to tell you what you should do with your business.

[Max Headroom]

"Canary birds are small songbirds that were brought over from Spain to Europe by sailors in the 17th century. Besides possessing very good vocals, they also come with extremely delicate digestive systems. There are many foods that we would enjoy but will instantly kill them off."

WTF?

[sundaymorningstaple]

"Canary birds are small songbirds that were brought over from Spain to Europe by sailors in the 17th century. Besides possessing very good vocals, they also come with extremely delicate digestive systems. There are many foods that we would enjoy but will instantly kill them off."

WTF?

Right birds, wrong metaphor methinks. Canaries were used as early Dräger Portable Gas Detectors in the mines. Bad air, they'd drop dead faster than anything else which meant is was time to haul butt for the surface.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_detector

[Max Headroom]

What was he thinking?