PR Rejection - new year kicks off!

[singmonk]

Hello to One and All!

Thank you for having such a wonderful forum to discuss Spore PR.

Result: Rejection received in 4 months with a 'was not successful at this point of time... Nevertheless, you can stay' response from ICA.

Have I received the kiss of death from ICA?


Story so far:

Indian techie, I earn over $10k and my wife over $5k. No kids yet.

1. Both have 4 year bachelors degrees and have furthered our education every year.
2. Experience working in different geographies across the world
3. Life, savings, retirement policies individually for both.
4. While she contributes as a teacher in her free time every week, I work for a specialized not for profit organization (will get full membership in 2016)
5. Filed 1 tax only. Been here for 1.5 years only.

Will be applying for my masters this year.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Was your rejection letter "not successful at this point of time" OR "you are welcome to stay on your Employment Pass as long as you can get it renewed"?

I've never seen the former and latter phrases both in the same letter. Are you sure it said "at this point of time"?

You have not been here long enough to apply for PR. You have read the requirements so you know you should have 3 tax returns under your belt or at least two years working here. Applying for a masters gets you nothing unless you already have it. If you are volunteering with the idea of grabbing additional brownie point towards your application, you might just as well stop as that ruse has been so over-used that ICA doesn't even pay attention to it now. As a long time member of the PA here I've watched dozens of EP holders join as observers in order to gain points and when they got their PR, were never to be seen again. So if anything, it's now a flag pointing out another potential abuser of Singapore's generosity.

[Barnsley]

Hello to One and All!

Thank you for having such a wonderful forum to discuss Spore PR.

Result: Rejection received in 4 months with a 'was not successful at this point of time... Nevertheless, you can stay' response from ICA.

Have I received the kiss of death from ICA?


Story so far:

Indian techie, I earn over $10k and my wife over $5k. No kids yet.

1. Both have 4 year bachelors degrees and have furthered our education every year.
2. Experience working in different geographies across the world
3. Life, savings, retirement policies individually for both.
4. While she contributes as a teacher in her free time every week, I work for a specialized not for profit organization (will get full membership in 2016)
5. Filed 1 tax only. Been here for 1.5 years only.

Will be applying for my masters this year.

You only been here 5 minutes ....

Do another couple of cycles of EP renewal then try again , by which time you will have the standard 3 Tax returns.

Whats the Masters for??

[singmonk]

Thank you for your kind responses.

* This is a specialized Non-profit, 99% of ppl can't even get in here. It's heavily funded by the gov. Been doing it earlier as well. - No brownie points, this is real work, after work!

* Masters is for my career progression, would be in tech, wife may be doing it as well. My work is kind of niche too.

* The response I received mentioned both "was not successful at this point of time" and the next point was "nevertheless, you and your wife can continue to stay on respective valid passes". I will write in the complete text this evening.

You are all right. Guess, it was too early.

[sgstrait]

If I recall correctly, there are only around 500,000 PR's in Singapore. Considering the number of foreigners that live here, and have lived here, this is not very many. So it's definitely a privilege to get it, and you need to have an outstanding application. If you were the ICA officer, what distinguishes you from the rest?

[singmonk]

Here is the complete response

"
Thank you for your interest in Singapore Permanent Residence (SPR)

2. We have considered your application, including supporting documents. We regret to inform you that your application is not successful at this point in time.

3. Nevertheless, you and your wife can continue to reside here on your respective valid passes.

4. If you require further assistance, you may call ICA at... "

[mksingapore]

Its case by case basis. You can apply PR after working 6 months here on EP, But as Sundaymorning said its recommended that you wait for 3 tax returns. It will show your economic contribution to Singapore. Being Indian you fall into 9.1 percent population of Singapore. So PR quota for Indians will be proportionate. There are lots of other factors too.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Correction to the above post, there is NO PR quota for any specific race in Singapore. that is an old wives tale or red herring. However, ICA uses immigration to maintain the demographics. However, from a couple of years during the run up to 2000, Singapore was trying to get a jump start on the IT sector. In order to jump start that they brought in the brightest for the least cost that they could find, hence opening the floodgates to Indian Programmers, etc. after a period of around ten years of unabated influx of Indian IT personnel, ICA found themselves with a conundrum of having the demographics skewed by around 2 percentages points in the resident Indian race here (up from the traditional 7% to, as noted, slightly over 9%. Since the 2011 GE they have been realigning the demographics back towards the traditional 7%. Which means the intake of Indians as been curtailed dramatically, unless it is something that is really needed by the government. They they will pull out all the stops to get it. The other problem is the penchant for Indians to get into positions of HR and tending to hire only other Indians, this especially bad in some of the banking sectors. It has put a bad taste in the mouths of the government and has caused a whole slew of new rulings and processes (like the MOM Jobs Database which if the job salary scale is below a certain threshhold, they must advertise for Singaporeans in that job board for a minimum of 2 weeks before they are allowed to offer it to a foreigner. Another consideration that may or may not have had an impact (although lots of local Indians have been rather vocal about it) is the tendency of Foreign Indians refusing to try to assimilate with the local diaspora.

[singmonk]

Yes, you are right. All my local Indian friends say that.

You'd mentioned that you have not seen statements 2 & 3 on the ICA response together. Does 'at the point of time' make a difference?

[sundaymorningstaple]

It could. Provided you wait till all the conditions are met, e.g., waiting for three tax assessments (which would mean at least two years of continuous employment. I generally recommend not applying until your EP has been renewed at least once (normally a 24 month EP/S pass (although one occasionally see 3 year EP/S passes as well). Hopefully that would also see you through to a sizable increase in salary and/or vertical advancement.

[Barnsley]

If I recall correctly, there are only around 500,000 PR's in Singapore. Considering the number of foreigners that live here, and have lived here, this is not very many. So it's definitely a privilege to get it, and you need to have an outstanding application. If you were the ICA officer, what distinguishes you from the rest?

What is your definition of outstanding?

[ecureilx]

Being Indian you fall into 9.1 percent population of Singapore. So PR quota for Indians will be proportionate. There are lots of other factors too.

in case you missed SMS's reply, the 9.1% has exceeded the original planned quota for Indians.

So it is trimming time, and that's nothing to do with Indians as "INDIANS", merely statistics being managed and numbers maintained. It's just business for SG Inc.

So until the other races go up and make Indians have a 'quota' or lot of Indians left, the door for Indian as a race is very, very, very narrow.

[sgstrait]

People, I would stay off this topic as this is Singapore, and commentators on this forum are not privy to factual information that relate to these matters. It is just assumption and guesswork (conveyed as factual) on a sensitive topic that is best avoided on public forums.

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[ecureilx]

People, I would stay off this topic as this is Singapore, and commentators on this forum are not privy to factual information that relate to these matters. It is just assumption and guesswork (conveyed as factual) on a sensitive topic that is best avoided on public forums.

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Errr. Who said it is the Truth, the Only Truth and Nothing but the Truth ?

Unless you expect each post to be accompanied by a serious disclaimer That's fun, right ?

Ah, about the ratio thing, if you are bit involved in the community, bits and pieces of the policies can be understood, though they are all not cast in stone.

[sgstrait]

When you say that something "is" or "has" or "will" happen, then what you are doing is alleging a fact. Look through your posts. facts need to be proven. If you are just opining then you need to couch what you say in those terms. Ordinarily it wouldn't matter but when you are alleging fact about sensitive topics, then you better be right or expect someone to hurl you up in front of a judge, then you can prove your righteousness to him.

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