Thursday, November 25, 2010

Singapore has the 10th highest cost of living, but ...

Based on 2009 UBS Cost of Living Survey, Singapore has the 10th highest cost of living in the world (translated: one of the most expensive city in the world). Below shows the top 10 results from that 2009 survey:

RankCityCountry
1TokyoJapan
2OsakaJapan
3MoscowRussia
4GenevaSwitzerland
5Hong KongHong Kong
6ZurichSwitzerland
7CopenhagenDenmark
8New York CityUnited States of America
9BeijingChina
10SingaporeSingapore


However, look at this 2009 richest city by purchasing power by UBS:

RankCity
1Zurich
2Sydney
3Luxembourg
4Dublin
5Miami
6Los Angeles
7Geneva
8New York
9Chicago
10Nicosia
11Berlin
12Montreal
13Brussels
14Helsinki
15London
16Copenhagen
17Toronto
18Amsterdam
19Frankfurt
20Munich
21Lyon
22Stockholm
23Tokyo
24Vienna
25Madrid
26Milan
27Paris
28Oslo
29Barcelona
30Auckland
31Lisbon
32Athens
33Dubai
34Tel Avi
35Taipei
36Ljubljana
37Moscow
38Manama
39Rome
40Johannesburg
41Hong Kong
42Seoul
43Tallinn
44Prague
45São Paulo
46Doha
47Bratislava
48Rio de Janeiro
49Kuala Lumpur
50Singapore


And this 2009 richest city by personal earnings by UBS:

RankCity
1Copenhagen
2Zurich
3Geneva
4New York
5Oslo
6Los Angeles
7Munich
8Luxembourg
9Frankfurt
10Dublin
11Brussels
12Helsinki
13Miami
14Chicago
15Amsterdam
16Berlin
17Stockholm
18Tokyo
19Vienna
20Sydney
21London
22Paris
23Lyon
24Toronto
25Montreal
26Milan
27Nicosia
28Madrid
29Barcelona
30Rome
31Athens
32Lisbon
33Ljubljana
34Auckland
35Tel Avi
36Dubai
37Hong Kong
38Seoul
39Taipei
40Singapore

If you look at the UBS personal earnings and purchasing power surveys for 2008, you will find that Singapore's ranking in those areas were higher in 2008 compared to 2009. It's also quite interesting that in the newest iPod survey, Singaporeans need to work 27.5 hours to buy an iPod Nano, ranked 40th in the list. First in the list by the way, only requires 9 hours of work.

So what does this signify? I believe the tables above are clear enough. We are increasingly being priced out of our own country. We're too productive?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is a well known fact that we have high living cost but low living standard.

With the new campaign of promoting people to be more productive (doing more with less resource/$), i guess the gap will further widen...

Rhinestic said...

LOL! We all know. But the pple up there are in denial.

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