Discuss about life in Singapore. Ask about cost of living, housing, travel, etiquette & lifestyle. Share experience & advice with Singaporeans & expat staying in Singapore.
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revhappy
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by revhappy » Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:05 am
SINGAPORE is the No.2 most expensive Asian city to live in, with only famously pricey Tokyo ahead in the rankings, according to a study by Swiss bank UBS.
Last edited by
revhappy on Wed, 10 Oct 2012 10:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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ScoobyDoes
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by ScoobyDoes » Fri, 21 Aug 2009 3:07 pm
Then that's an utterly stupid statement and headline...... "only behind Japan."
Japan then, by your counts doesn't belong to Asia....... this entire thread needs deleted instantly on that basis alone!
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by littlegreenman » Fri, 21 Aug 2009 3:34 pm
ScoobyDoes wrote:Then that's an utterly stupid statement and headline...... "only behind Japan."
Japan then, by your counts doesn't belong to Asia....... this entire thread needs deleted instantly on that basis alone!
I sorta agree. In Japan you still have to pay the key fee when you rent the place. Key fee= one years rent for you to get the key and then you pay every month your rent as per usual. That alone puts it at the top of the table.
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by durain » Fri, 21 Aug 2009 5:45 pm
how can it be 2nd most expensive city when can still get cheapo chicken rice?
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revhappy
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by revhappy » Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:29 am
I was referring to the UBS survey:
Here's the report:
SINGAPORE is the No.2 most expensive Asian city to live in, with only famously pricey Tokyo ahead in the rankings, according to a study by Swiss bank UBS.
UBS assessed the purchasing power of residents in 73 cities and compared prices of a standardised basket of 122 goods and services, excluding rents.
The Asian top three were no surprise although Hong Kong usually emerges as more expensive in such surveys; but not this time as UBS discounted rent. Rent is traditionally higher in Hong Kong and would have been enough to send the city into second spot in Asia.
On the global league table, Tokyo was the fifth most expensive city while Singapore was 24th - up from the 32nd spot in 2006, the last time UBS conducted a similar study. Kuala Lumpur, Manila, New Delhi and Mumbai propped up the table as cities with the lowest prices.
Cities like Oslo, Zurich, Copenhagen, Geneva and traditional wallet-buster New York came in tops as the world's most expensive cities.
Employees in Tokyo earn the highest wages in Asia, making almost double the amount their counterparts earn here. Workers in Manila, Jakarta and Mumbai earn the lowest wages.
However, Asia remains home to some of the world's priciest cities and nowhere is the spread between most expensive and cheapest more pronounced, said UBS.
The study also found that people worked an average of 1,902 hours a year in the cities surveyed. Workers in Asian and Middle Eastern cities slogged for the longest hours, averaging 2,119 and 2,063 hours each year respectively.
The lucky people in the French cities of Lyon and Paris spend the least amount of time at work a year: just 1,582 and 1,594 hours respectively.
In another survey released last month, Singapore jumped three spots to become the 10th most expensive city in the world for expatriates. However, that survey - conducted by Mercer, which also studied items such as food, housing, transport and entertainment costs - suggested that Singapore had not become more expensive; instead, other cities had become cheaper places to live in.
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revhappy on Sun, 14 Oct 2012 9:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by durain » Sat, 22 Aug 2009 5:37 am
according to mercer (
www.mercer.com), singapore is at 10 for 2009. was at 13 for 2008.
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by sundaymorningstaple » Sat, 22 Aug 2009 7:08 am
Funny how people will latch onto the silliest of statements. If Singapore is no. 2 in asia why are there 4 asian cities on the global mercer servey ahead of Singapore?
* Tokyo, Japan (1st)
*
Osaka, Japan (2nd)
*
Hong Kong, Hong Kong (5th)
*
Beijing, China (9th)
*
Singapore, Singapore (10th)
You have to read more than just the 1st line of a google result, you need to read the article in full.

SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers
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revhappy
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by revhappy » Sat, 22 Aug 2009 2:24 pm
I was referring to the UBS survey:
Here's the report:
SINGAPORE is the No.2 most expensive Asian city to live in, with only famously pricey Tokyo ahead in the rankings, according to a study by Swiss bank UBS.
UBS assessed the purchasing power of residents in 73 cities and compared prices of a standardised basket of 122 goods and services, excluding rents.
The Asian top three were no surprise although Hong Kong usually emerges as more expensive in such surveys; but not this time as UBS discounted rent. Rent is traditionally higher in Hong Kong and would have been enough to send the city into second spot in Asia.
On the global league table, Tokyo was the fifth most expensive city while Singapore was 24th - up from the 32nd spot in 2006, the last time UBS conducted a similar study. Kuala Lumpur, Manila, New Delhi and Mumbai propped up the table as cities with the lowest prices.
Cities like Oslo, Zurich, Copenhagen, Geneva and traditional wallet-buster New York came in tops as the world's most expensive cities.
Employees in Tokyo earn the highest wages in Asia, making almost double the amount their counterparts earn here. Workers in Manila, Jakarta and Mumbai earn the lowest wages.
However, Asia remains home to some of the world's priciest cities and nowhere is the spread between most expensive and cheapest more pronounced, said UBS.
The study also found that people worked an average of 1,902 hours a year in the cities surveyed. Workers in Asian and Middle Eastern cities slogged for the longest hours, averaging 2,119 and 2,063 hours each year respectively.
The lucky people in the French cities of Lyon and Paris spend the least amount of time at work a year: just 1,582 and 1,594 hours respectively.
In another survey released last month, Singapore jumped three spots to become the 10th most expensive city in the world for expatriates. However, that survey - conducted by Mercer, which also studied items such as food, housing, transport and entertainment costs - suggested that Singapore had not become more expensive; instead, other cities had become cheaper places to live in.
Last edited by
revhappy on Wed, 10 Oct 2012 10:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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sundaymorningstaple
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by sundaymorningstaple » Sat, 22 Aug 2009 3:30 pm
That's what I said, you have to read the entire report! What you are reading is selective results of the survey that say what the reporter wants it to say.......
revhappy wrote:I was referring to the UBS survey:
Here's the report:
SINGAPORE is the No.2 most expensive Asian city to live in, with only famously pricey Tokyo ahead in the rankings, according to a study by Swiss bank UBS.
UBS assessed the purchasing power of residents in 73 cities and compared prices of a standardised basket of 122 goods and services, excluding rents.
The Asian top three were no surprise although Hong Kong usually emerges as more expensive in such surveys; but not this time as UBS discounted rent. Rent is traditionally higher in Hong Kong and would have been enough to send the city into second spot in Asia.
On the global league table, Tokyo was the fifth most expensive city while Singapore was 24th - up from the 32nd spot in 2006, the last time UBS conducted a similar study. Kuala Lumpur, Manila, New Delhi and Mumbai propped up the table as cities with the lowest prices.
Cities like Oslo, Zurich, Copenhagen, Geneva and traditional wallet-buster New York came in tops as the world's most expensive cities.
Employees in Tokyo earn the highest wages in Asia, making almost double the amount their counterparts earn here. Workers in Manila, Jakarta and Mumbai earn the lowest wages.
However, Asia remains home to some of the world's priciest cities and nowhere is the spread between most expensive and cheapest more pronounced, said UBS.
The study also found that people worked an average of 1,902 hours a year in the cities surveyed. Workers in Asian and Middle Eastern cities slogged for the longest hours, averaging 2,119 and 2,063 hours each year respectively.
The lucky people in the French cities of Lyon and Paris spend the least amount of time at work a year: just 1,582 and 1,594 hours respectively.
In another survey released last month, Singapore jumped three spots to become the 10th most expensive city in the world for expatriates. However, that survey - conducted by Mercer, which also studied items such as food, housing, transport and entertainment costs - suggested that Singapore had not become more expensive; instead, other cities had become cheaper places to live in.
As rent and schooling and transport are the three largest expenses normally, you have to discount any survey that leave any of the three out of the results as the results will most definitely be skewed.
I reread your initial post and you didn't refer to any survey at all. You did, in a subsequent post, tell us to Google and if you did you found a whole page of results including the Mercer reports and the UBS Asia and the Mercer global reports which, as I pointed out, showed the Asian cities and their rankings globally. (That probably used the whole basket of costs).
So, can you tell us again what the the original purpose of your post? I didn't seem to see it anywhere.

SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers
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ScoobyDoes
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by ScoobyDoes » Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:16 pm
In theory i don't have a complaint about reports upping Singapore's place in the "most expensive city" debate because it might make the locals and government react by admitting the place is no longer competitive.
Unfortunately it can likewise have the opposite effect, where everybody says "Wow, we can still afford to live in the 2nd most expensive place in the world so we must be doing really great." This is when eyes close and the brain is removed.
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by Bafana » Mon, 24 Aug 2009 9:35 pm
Sydney also got to be one of the most expensive cities in Asia (if we keep saying we are part of asia maybe one day someone will belive us

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by winger7 » Wed, 26 Aug 2009 4:57 pm
I live in Hong Kong and...I know for a fact that Hong Kong is more expensive...

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by ScoobyDoes » Thu, 27 Aug 2009 3:41 pm
winger7 wrote:I live in Hong Kong and...I know for a fact that Hong Kong is more expensive...

I think only for housing.
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by winger7 » Thu, 27 Aug 2009 3:46 pm
ScoobyDoes wrote:winger7 wrote:I live in Hong Kong and...I know for a fact that Hong Kong is more expensive...

I think only for housing.
And food, and transportation...
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by Nath21 » Thu, 27 Aug 2009 4:19 pm
Chicken rice is to Singaporeans as what cheap petrol is to yanks.
Every other price could rise but keep that one key price low and you keep the massess happy.
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