SINGAPORE: Expatriates coming from countries with currencies stronger or at least equivalent to the Singapore dollar may not feel the pinch of working and living in this island city.
For those coming from countries with “less currency power”, they will need to shop and spend wisely to survive till the end of the month.
And Singapore has retained its title as the world’s most expensive city for the third consecutive year.
However, the Worldwide Cost of Living 2016 Special Report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) tempers its analysis by saying that despite topping the ranking, Singapore still offers relative value in some categories compared with its regional peers.
It says that for general basic groceries, Singapore offers the same value as New York.
The Worldwide Cost of Living is a bi-annual EIU survey that compares more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services.
These include food, drink, clothing, household supplies and personal care items, home rent, transport, utility bills, private schools, domestic help and recreational costs.
The numbers are quite similar following some quick checks by Bernama on the same brands of products sold in Malaysia at some of Singapore’s popular grocery stores.
One hundred sachets of teabags retails for S$5.65, a 600gm or jumbo enriched white bread for S$2.40, 10 Omega 3 eggs for S$3.25 and 1.5 litre of drinking water for 70 cents.
“It looks almost similar to what we are paying in Malaysia but wait until you convert it. Its three times more than what Malaysians are paying back home.
“I always check out bargains from advertisements in the newspapers. I have to be mindful of what I spend because I want to stretch my dollar,” said a Malaysian residing here.
Alongside Seoul, EIU said Singapore is also a very expensive city to shop for clothes and pay for utilities.
For a small family of two, you are paying around S$200 a month for utility costs and that include gas, water and electricity.
As a tenant, an expatriate may need to fork out as much as S$500 for a utility deposit, depending on the provider.
Rentals can touch anything from S$3,000 and above for a condo unit or apartment in the East Coast area which is popular with expatriates.
The survey allows for city-to-city comparisons, but for the purpose of this report all cities are compared with the base city of New York.
EIU researchers surveyed a range of stores – supermarkets, mid-priced stores and higher-priced specialty outlets. Prices reflect costs for more than 160 items in each city.
These are not recommended retail prices or manufacturers’ cost but what the paying customers are charged.
Prices gathered are then converted into the safe haven US dollars using the prevailing exchange rate and weighted in order to achieve comparative indices.
The survey is done twice every year for more than 30 years.
More than 50,000 individual prices are collected in each survey, conducted each March and September and published in June and December the same year. – Bernama
