Category: Singapore

ST manpower correspondent Toh Yong Chuan steps into the shoes of a Singapore taxi driver
From the surly to the genial, it is passengers who make or break your day. But the pressure sure piles up

DEC 1, 2014
BY TOH YONG CHUAN MANPOWER CORRESPONDENT

On my fourth day as a taxi driver, I drove for six hours at night with just one five-minute toilet break.

It was past midnight when I headed home and absent-mindedly got into the wrong lane at the junction of Bishan Road and Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1. The traffic lights turned green and I took off, almost hitting another taxi.

When I got home, my wife greeted me with a hug and said: “You have the taxi driver smell.”

“It is the smell of hard work,” I said. It was the odour of being cooped up for hours in stale air. I didn’t mention my near accident.
I have always been fascinated by cabbies. As a manpower reporter, I have interviewed numerous drivers, yet there remained so much I did not know about them. Topmost on my mind as I embarked on a two-week stint as a cabby were these questions: How hard is it to be a cabby? And how much can a cabby earn?

So my SMRT cab, a Toyota Prius with the registration number SHC4123S, became my second home for 10 to 12 hours a day. I split a typical day into two, plying the roads from 6.30am to 11am, and from 5pm until I was too tired to go on.

Every morning I would head first to Serangoon North or Ang Mo Kio housing estate, near my home. There are always passengers going to work from Housing Board estates.

After that, there was no telling where I would end up.

I thought I knew Singapore well, but my stint as a cabby took me to places I never knew existed. I picked up passengers from obscure spots like a sprawling offshore marine base in Loyang, and Punggol Seventeenth Avenue in an area that somehow doesn’t have Avenues One to Sixteen.

I discovered that Tampines housing estate is so huge it is sandwiched between Tampines Expressway and the Pan Island Expressway, and is accessible via no fewer than seven expressway entrances and exits. I found myself in Tampines almost every other day during my cab driving stint.

Lessons from passengers

On Day 1, my first passenger was a man in his 30s, dressed in a blue long-sleeved shirt and black trousers.

He got into my cab at 6.50am along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 9 and said: “Pandan Crescent, go by Upper Thomson, Lornie, Farrer, AYE.”

Those were the only words he uttered and he kept his eyes locked on his smartphone for the rest of the journey. He did not notice that in my excitement at picking up my first fare, I had forgotten to start the meter until about seven minutes into the trip. His fare was $23.73 and I must have saved him about $2.

He gave me a hint of what was to come – that most passengers prefer to be left alone.

The rest of that day took me to Changi Airport, Bedok, Pickering Street, Alexandra Road, Amoy Street and Upper Bukit Timah Road in the morning. That evening, I went to Serangoon Road, Mount Vernon Road, Yishun, Woodlands, Sembawang Road, Tampines, Bedok, Bishan and Paya Lebar.

All my passengers were people who flagged me on the street. I was not confident enough to respond to radio bookings, which would have needed me to reach the pick-up point within five, seven or nine minutes of a call. So I ended up cruising empty most of that day, with the longest stretch of over an hour in Woodlands.

My best passenger was a woman in her early 40s who got into my cab along Alexandra Road. I chatted with her and eventually revealed that I was driving the cab for charity. She handed me $12 for her fare of $11.18 when she reached her Amoy Street office and said: “Keep the change.”

The worst experience was after I picked up a woman at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in the evening. She wanted to go to a condominium in Jalan Mata Ayer, off Sembawang Road, which I was unfamiliar with. She was from Myanmar, and I misunderstood her directions, given in halting English. When I took a wrong turn, she let fly with a rebuke in Myanmarese. The taxi meter showed $9.44 but I said she could pay just $8. That pacified her a little.

My first day ended at midnight when I pulled into my regular Caltex petrol station in Lorong Chuan to refuel and wash the cab. My usual car washer Zainal did not recognise me until I waved at him – twice. “Times are bad huh? You started driving taxi part-time?” he asked.

I was too tired to explain. I had driven 246km and taken 14 people on 13 trips. My takings, after deducting petrol cost, taxi rental and $4 for washing the cab, came to just $29.66 for 12 hours’ work.

Thankfully, things got better over the following days. I kept to the same work routine except on weekends, when I drove from noon to midnight.

By the end of Day 2, I had fine-tuned my greetings to these:

“Good morning, Sir!”

“Good evening, Madam!”

“Heading to work, Sir?”

“Going shopping, Madam?”

“You’re going to work early, Sir!”

“Long day at work, Madam?”

If the passenger did not reply or uttered only a monosyllabic answer, I took it as my cue to be quiet and to just drive.

Passengers travelling in groups tend to ignore the cabby, talking among themselves as if you are not there. So I couldn’t help overhearing people complaining about the Government, and workers complaining about their bosses. A young couple having a tiff complained about each other all the way from Sembawang Shopping Centre to Toa Payoh Lorong 1. “I am breaking off with you,” yelled the woman as she stormed off.

There were some passengers who, literally, made me feel sick.

Like the young woman I picked up in Jurong East who coughed and sneezed all the way to Choa Chu Kang. When it came time for her to pay, I hesitated when she handed me the money. After she left, I sprayed the cab generously with the Lysol disinfectant I kept in the cab’s glove compartment.

Then there was the man who sounded like he was from China. Getting into my cab near Bugis Junction, he burped. And burped. And burped. It was obvious that he had just eaten “ma la huo guo”, or spicy steamboat, for dinner.

An elderly man who got into my cab in Coleman Lane, at the Grand Park City Hall hotel, wanted me to reverse about two car lengths back into Coleman Street to avoid going round the block so he would save 30 cents.

In Chinatown, a man heading for South Bridge Road told me to take a “short cut” through Temple Street from New Bridge Road. I did, only to find traffic at a standstill along Temple Street – and that was when he paid up and jumped out, leaving me stuck for 15 minutes.

I have to say something about people who eat in taxis. While drivers cannot stop people from eating in their cabs, most dislike it because of the smell and the mess left behind. Thankfully I met only one passenger who ate on the go. The young mother insisted on feeding her toddler biscuits despite my asking her not to eat in the cab.

“The boy is hungry,” she insisted.

They left such a mess that I had to spend 30 minutes and more than half their $8.30 fare to have the cab cleaned at a petrol station.

My most unpleasant ride of all was with a woman in her 50s who complained non-stop about my driving from Tagore Industrial Park to Yishun Avenue 3. Her beef was that I drove too slowly and braked too hard.

“You are a new driver and it is my bad luck getting into your cab,” she ranted. “I was planning to buy 4D but I will not, because it is bad luck meeting you.”

I just bit my tongue.

But my worst passengers were the ones I never met. They were the people who made taxi bookings, then failed to show up.

On a rainy Wednesday morning I was in Telok Blangah Way when I accepted a call booking for Delta Avenue, and headed there rightaway. It took five minutes and I passed more than five passengers trying to hail cabs in the rain. When I got to the pick-up point, the passenger was nowhere to be found.

It was one of three “no shows” I encountered during my stint. Taxi drivers are helpless when this happens.

Each day, however, I would meet at least one or two passengers who stood out by being pleasant, saying “please” or “thank you”, or making conversation that helped to make a lonely job less monotonous.

I took three British Airways pilots from Mandarin Hotel in Orchard Road to the Esplanade, where they were going to have supper at Makansutra Gluttons Bay. When we got there, they invited me to join them. “C’mon, take a break,” one of them said, and he meant it. I declined because I was just too tired.

A teacher and an architect who spoke with me long enough to learn I was a reporter on assignment and that all my earnings would go to charity paid me in $50 notes and told me to keep the change – which added up to $43.

A passenger I took from the Botanic Gardens to Battery Road sent SMRT an e-mail complimenting me, saying: “I feel that he really went the extra mile to provide a comfortable journey for all his customers and I am really impressed. Thank you, Uncle!”

It made my day.

As my days of being a cabby progressed, I found that my earnings were decent, if not very high.

The most I earned in a single day – after driving 12 hours and deducting what a cabby usually pays for taxi rental and fuel – was $141. It would mean a monthly income of more than $4,000 if every day was like that and I worked a full month. My typical daily takings were between $90 and $100, or about $3,000 a month, and even that would call for driving 10 to 12 hours a day, with no day off.

The median gross monthly income of Singaporeans and permanent residents in June this year, excluding employers’ CPF contributions, was $3,276.

My stint was too short for me to befriend other cabbies at coffeeshops, but I managed to pick up some secrets of the trade.

It’s easy to get passengers in the morning when people are heading to work from HDB estates.
To earn $3 more in the evening, go into the CBD and pick up passengers while the CBD surcharge applies from 5pm to midnight. Sorry, but people waiting just outside the CBD will have to just keep waiting. Even inside the CBD, cabs will be scarce just before the surcharge hours begin.
Heartland towns like Woodlands and Sembawang offer slim pickings in the evenings, because residents hardly go out then. But hospitals everywhere are good places to find passengers, especially after evening visiting hours.
Overall, demand for taxis far exceeds supply during the morning and evening peak hours, so a cabby who is disciplined about driving during these periods can earn a decent living.
There are downsides as well.

The long hours on the road affected my sleep, and most nights I slept barely six hours. By Day 3, I was resorting to taking two Panadols before hitting the road.

Backaches were a frequent bother, from sitting so long.

Cabbies need toilet breaks, and the most convenient stops are at petrol stations. I found that many do not have soap, and at a Geylang petrol station, the toilet has no door.

There are simply no convenient public toilets in the Orchard Road area for taxi drivers, but I discovered that the Ba’alwie Mosque off Dunearn Road lets cabbies use its toilet. I blessed the good people of the mosque when I needed to go desperately one night.

My cab-driving days ended on Day 11 of my stint. It wasn’t a good day for me.

Early that morning the 16-year-old schoolboy in my cab was late for school and begged me to drive faster. I relented, stepped on the gas and ran a red light at 6.47am. Instantly, there were two camera flashes and I knew I had been caught by the traffic light camera. That meant $200 gone in less than a second – my earnings from about 18 hours of work!

But that wasn’t why I stopped driving. The trouble had begun two days earlier, when I discovered I’d developed a haemorrhoid from nine days of sitting for hours. I learnt that haemorrhoids are a common ailment among cabbies, along with backaches and high blood pressure.

The pain had become unbearable, so I decided to end my cab-driving experiment three days earlier than planned.

A month later, the traffic summons arrived. I hoped the Traffic Police would be sympathetic, but my appeal drew a swift rejection and a chiding: “Make a conscious effort to comply with traffic rules and regulations which are made for your own safety and that of other road users.”

Looking back, I still wonder why even passengers much older than me called me “Uncle”. It seems that if you drive a taxi in Singapore, you’re everyone’s Uncle or Auntie.

I returned the cab to SMRT after clocking 2,739km, having earned $2,294.60 for charity and gaining a newfound respect for taxi drivers.

1972

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Two dead, four injured in car crash on ECP
Published on May 2, 2014 8:04 AM

The mangled remains of the white Volkswagen that crashed on East Coast Parkway yesterday. — PHOTO: LIANHE WANBAO

By Grace Chua

A car crash at dawn yesterday left four people injured and two dead, including the director of a local magazine publishing group.

Mr Jamie Ho, 33, a director of Magazines Integrated, or m(int), was driving a white Volkswagen with five passengers in it when it crashed into a guardrail and a tree at the Marine Vista exit of the East Coast Parkway.

The car struck the guardrail with enough force to tear up chunks of concrete anchoring it down, and ended up crushed and mangled on a grassy divider at the expressway exit.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force said it received a call about the accident at 7.34am, and sent a fire engine, a Red Rhino emergency vehicle, three ambulances and two other support vehicles to the scene.

Rescuers found Mr Ho and a 29-year-old woman trapped in the front of the car, and another passenger pinned in the back, while three other passengers had already exited the vehicle.

The SCDF pronounced the pair in front dead at the scene, and sent the other four people to Changi General Hospital.

Among the survivors were a 24-year-old woman with a hip fracture, a 26-year-old woman with multiple injuries, a 25-year-old man with chest injuries, and a 29-year-old woman with abrasions on her face and hands.

Mr Ho, a keen angler, was associate publisher of quarterly fishermen’s magazine Hooked, which is published by m(int).

According to the company’s website, his expertise was in interactive media, mobile broadcasts and events marketing of cyber-gaming competitions.

It is unclear how the accident occurred, but the car is believed to have skidded because it rained yesterday morning, reported Chinese evening daily Lianhe Wanbao.

Here is the video of the car crash:

Leadership needed to halt grave error
CHEW KHENG CHUAN

FOR a long time, Bukit Brown had been hidden from public view, awareness and scrutiny.

But, now, it has been identified as a 2014 World Monuments Watch site, about to be irreversibly damaged by the construction of an entirely avoidable eight-lane expressway.

This will forever alter its unique nature, and destroy not just a huge swathe of nature, but also 4,000 graves in its path. Even as I write, the bulldozers are about to rumble. The point of no return is nigh. I am a great admirer of Singapore’s civil servants. They are highly competent, incorruptible, and think hard on solving Singapore’s problems. They got us to where we are today. But in the case of Bukit Brown, they have fallen short.

An intervention is needed. The political masters should act now to halt a grave error.

The plan to drive the highway through Bukit Brown was to solve traffic congestion. The new highway would let motorists bypass Lornie Road and connect them more directly to Pan-Island Expressway. All that was needed: A straight line through a closed-down cemetery called Bukit Brown.

The highway is just the start. The plan is to remove the entirety of Bukit Brown and contiguous cemeteries – all 162ha – and to use this prime location to house up to 50,000 new homes in 15-20 years’ time.

But Bukit Brown is the largest Chinese cemetery outside China, with more than 200,000 immigrant members of the Chinese diaspora buried there.

There are reburials of older graves that date back to 1833, just 14 years after the founding of modern Singapore. And this is the burial ground for most of the pioneers of Singapore, whose names identify the roads of this country – such as Joo Chiat, Keong Siak, Kheam Hock, Eng Neo, Ong Sam Leong, and my great-grandfather, Boon Lay.

The removal of Bukit Brown will serve Singapore’s needs of managing traffic congestion, and provide space to house the growing population.

Yet, the benefits are too little; the costs are too high.

Buried at Bukit Brown are the earliest generations of immigrants who built this society, the towkays and the coolies, and the wide swathe of society in between.

Bukit Brown is not just a cemetery for the dead, it is a unique ethnographic museum for the living.

Hokkiens, Teochews, Cantonese, Hakka – Chinese of all dialects are buried here, with the names of their descendants on the tombstones, looked after by the Jade Girl and the Golden Boy, accompanied by carved stone lions, phoenixes, tigers’ paws. Guarded by turbaned Sikh guards and angels. Recorded with different calendar systems – Qing, Confucian, Republican and Gregorian.

Rich layers of history and ethnography in the material culture of the graves of Bukit Brown have only recently been discovered, documented and expounded by researchers from the architectural faculty of the National University of Singapore.

It might be thought that once they have been documented they can be destroyed. But if this was right, then one might argue that once Stonehenge has been filmed and recorded, why not build a Tesco and a parking lot on its site?

Consider further, the cost to the habitat. Here is home to fauna that includes the endangered Sunda Pangolin, monitor lizards, as well as several butterfly species, some uncommon. Thirteen threatened bird species – 23 per cent of the nationally threatened bird species – four rare resident bird species and 15 uncommon resident bird species reside at Bukit Brown.

Its size and its contiguity to the Central Catchment Area of MacRitchie and Peirce reservoirs form a critical mass that influences the rainfall, the micro-climate of the district and the climate of the island.

Take away the natural sponge – the verdant flora and soils of Bukit Brown – and rainfall may possibly be channelled to flood Orchard Road!

If planners in the Ministry of National Development, Urban Redevelopment Authority, Land Transport Authority and Singapore Land Authority cannot understand this because they have a more immediate micro-perspective, then it is up to the political leadership to step in now to take corrective action.

A political leader has now got to step up to the plate, step into the breach and switch off the engines of destruction that will obliterate our heritage.

Call it off. Save the day.

The decision to build that highway, or those 50,000 houses, can still be made in the future – 30 or 50 years from now. But to proceed is to perform an irreversible act of destruction.

How should Bukit Brown be preserved? As a new, transformed national heritage park.

It will be a place of sanctuary, sanctity, sacred burials, cultural and historical heritage, education, research into our origins and identity as a nation.

It will be a unique tourist attraction, a park that caters to the recreational needs of citizens and visitors.

There are alternatives to a better traffic flow on Lornie Road. There are alternatives to space for 50,000 more homes.

What does it take to see that Bukit Brown needs to be saved and not destroyed?

Political vision; intelligence; and clarity that will be transformative for Singapore. A single bold decision. Leadership.

The writer is chairman of The Substation and a consultant fundraiser. This article first appeared in The Business Times Weekend.

WSJ.MONEY March 7, 2013

Wealth Over the Edge: Singapore
$26,000 cocktails. Traffic jams freckled with Ferraris. The world’s sternest city is now the richest. Why?
By SHIBANI MAHTANI

It’s midnight on a Saturday night at the Marina Bay Sands resort near the sparkling Singapore River, and all the boutiques are shut. But past a cosmetic-surgery clinic and a Ferrari accessories store close by, a large crowd is getting increasingly agitated. Dozens of hopefuls are clamoring to get in to what is billed as the world’s most expensive club, Pangaea.

When most people think of Singapore, an order-obsessed Asian version of Wall Street comes to mind. But lately, Singapore has become a haven for the ultra-rich.

Tight-fitting Herve Leger bandage dresses are practically a uniform here, often paired with Christian Louboutin heels and Chanel 2.55 bags, as women try to befriend club goers who are lucky enough to get past the red-velvet barrier and bouncers. It is frequently the leggy models, part of the club’s core demographic, who succeed. Out-of-town visitors who negotiated their way onto the guest list weeks earlier are turned away, even after offering to pay more than $3,000 for a table. The nightclub is completely full.

Past the bouncers, a walk through a long tunnel with blue ultraviolet lights and a ride up an elevator reveal one of the world’s most exclusive parties. Michael Ault, Pangaea’s founder, sits at the club’s most prestigious table by the bar, on cushions covered in exotic African ostrich skins. His table is covered with bottles of Belvedere vodka, Cristal champagne, buckets of ice and dozens of glasses for his friends. His wife, Sabrina Ault, a former fashion model and now his business partner, wears a fake shark’s head and wields a plastic gun while dancing on a table top. At Pangaea, all surfaces are made for dancing—even tables made from the trunks of 1,000-year-old trees and the crocodile-skinned couches.

It may seem counterintuitive, but a dance club does not need a dance floor if you are Michael Ault. A veteran of Manhattan nightlife and descendant of blue-blooded socialites—he is the son of a Van Cleef from the Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry family and the stepson of Wall Street’s famed Dean Witter—Ault, 49, prides himself on one thing above all others: the ability to throw a good party. And he has done just that over the years at more than 25 clubs from New York to Miami Beach and São Paulo to London. He is credited with being one of the first nightclub impresarios to introduce bottle service—now commonplace globally—at the legendary New York Spy Bar in the 1990s, where even Kate Moss was turned away on exceptionally packed nights.

The Pangaea experience, he says, replicates the feeling of being at a house party—one that just happens to offer African tribal masks from Ault’s personal collection, throbbing music, a $26,000 cocktail that contains a diamond inside and is served by waitresses in black dresses, and the knowledge that many of the people around you are worth billions.

Pangaea, though just over a year old, is now considered the most profitable club in the world with revenues of more than $100,000 per night in recent months, Ault says. It’s also one of the most expensive clubs, with tables costing as much as $15,000, and the uber-rich regularly chalking up six-figure bills. He could have brought this extravagance to just about anywhere in the world. London, with its collection of royals and a party scene that attracts Europe’s glitterati. Dubai, too, the land of if-you-want-an-island-you-just-build-one. And of course, his hometown and former playground, Manhattan.

But Ault, who moved to Singapore three years ago, says he “no longer feels the magic” in Gotham, which still bears the scars of a financial crisis that knocked the wind out of much of its most extravagant party culture. Singapore, he says, is another matter. This is where he says the rich feel, well, rich, and unusually secure. And where they seem to know only one common language, the language of excess—all too shamelessly displayed in his club.

“One night, there were these kids here—literally kids in their 20s—who all had their own private jets,” Ault recalls during another meeting, on a Thursday morning, leaning back on a leather couch in his club wearing bright-blue fuzzy slippers embroidered with a pink skull. “Serious jets, too. There was an A380 which was converted to include a pool and basketball court—it was ridiculous.”

“What I see here is what I imagined must have happened in the U.S. in the 1880s, in the Gilded Age, when it first took over England in terms of wealth,” he says. “It is truly shocking how much wealth there is—and how willing people are to spend it.”

Welcome to the world’s newest Monaco, a haven for the ultra-rich in what until recently was mocked as one of the most straight-laced, boring cities in the world. When most people think of Singapore, if they do at all, they think of an order-obsessed Asian version of Wall Street or London’s Canary Wharf, only with implausibly clean, sterile streets and no crime. The southeast Asian city-state of five million people is perhaps best known for banning the sale of chewing gum or caning vandals, including American Michael Fay in 1994 for spray-painting cars. Drug traffickers face the death penalty, and even Ault complains the authorities won’t let him import his prized gun collection, which now sits in his other homes in Palm Beach and Manhattan.

But over the past decade, Singapore has undergone a dramatic makeover, as the rich and famous from Asia and beyond debark on its shores in search of a glamorous new home—and one of the safest places to park their wealth. Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin gave up his American citizenship in favor of permanent residence there, choosing to live on and invest from the island while squiring around town in a Bentley. Australian mining tycoon Nathan Tinkler, that country’s second wealthiest man under 40, whose fortune is pegged at $825 million by Forbes, also chose to move to Singapore last year. They join Bhupendra Kumar Modi, one of India’s biggest telecom tycoons who gained Singapore citizenship in 2011, as well as New Zealand billionaire Richard Chandler, who relocated in 2008, and famed U.S. investor Jim Rogers, who set up shop there in 2007. Gina Rinehart, one of the world’s richest women, slapped down $46.3 million for a pair of Singapore condominium units last year.

And then there are, of course, your average millionaires—more of whom can be found among Singapore’s resident population than anywhere in the world. According to Boston Consulting Group, the island had 188,000 millionaire households in 2011—slightly more than 17 percent of its resident households—which effectively means one in six homes has disposable private wealth of at least $1 million, excluding property, business and luxury goods. Add in property, with Singapore real estate among the most expensive in the world, and this number would be even higher. Singapore also now has the highest gross domestic product per capita in the world at $56,532, having overtaken Norway, the U.S., Hong Kong and Switzerland, according to a 2012 wealth report by Knight Frank and Citi Private Bank.

But what really checks all the right boxes for many of the world’s ultra-rich is Singapore’s obsession with order.

The toys of all these millionaires and billionaires are visible across the city-state. A country roughly the size of San Francisco, it now has 449 Ferraris, up from 142 in 2001, while its Maserati fleet has grown from 24 to 469. Yacht clubs are popping up along with super-luxurious shops, like the Louis Vuitton Island Maison, a flagship boutique of the ubiquitous luxury brand housed in its own floating pavilion. Nightclubs like Pangaea and Filter, which are frequented by the young Saverin and his crew of millionaire party boys, have turned into havens for the wealthy to mingle. Rich out-of-towners play at Singapore’s two glamorous new casino resorts, opened in 2010, including the Marina Bay Sands complex with its celebrity chef restaurants and an infinity pool on the 57th floor with palm trees overlooking the skyline. In 2007, Bernie Ecclestone decided that the city-state would be added to the illustrious Formula One World Championship calendar. The race—which is the only Formula One night race in the world and is set to continue annually until at least 2017—has emerged as one of the most glamorous Formula One events, broadcasting the impressive Singapore night skyline to millions globally.

Singapore has long been a magnet for rich expatriates and multinational corporate executives. They are attracted to the city-state’s low taxes, virtually crime-free streets, pro-business policies and predictable government, with one political party in power since it gained independence in 1965. But the onetime British trading post’s ascent into the stratosphere of the world’s ultra-wealthy cities in recent years reflects a momentous shift in the global economy, as wealth settles in Asia after more than a decade of booming emerging-market growth. Asia now has more millionaires than anywhere else, according to consultancy Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management. While the rich lick their wounds in Europe and North America, the net worth of individuals in countries like China and Indonesia are up 6 percent to 7 percent annually.

Danny Quah, professor of economics and international development at the London School of Economics, has calculated that the world’s economic center of gravity—measured by looking at income averages across more than 700 places worldwide—has shifted east over the past 30 years, from the Transatlantic Axis to somewhere across the Arabian Peninsula. If current growth trends continue, this center will move in another three decades to a resting point between India and China—just about where Singapore is, meaning its potential as the world’s economic center may not even be fully realized.

Unlike the West or even places like the Middle East, though, much of the new wealth being created in Asia is emerging in countries where rich people see their assets at risk, either because of unreliable governments or unloved ones. The Chinese alone are reportedly exporting billions of dollars, saying they no longer trust their government and want to put their money elsewhere. Indians and Indonesians have likewise been looking for a place where they can stash cash to avoid high taxes or work with international-class wealth managers, while steering clear of the unpredictable policy shifts in their rambunctious—and some say, corrupt—democracies. Many Americans and Europeans just want a place where their investments can keep growing—hardly a problem in Singapore, smack in the middle of the fast-growing Asia.

“This kind of sharp change [in the global economy] brings with it an emergence of the very rich, who seek security and stability and a pronounced need for financial services in wealth management, investment, and facilitating and guiding decisions,” Quah says. “A place like Singapore has developed both the reputation and the expertise along every single one of these dimensions.”

But what really checks all the right boxes for many of the world’s ultra-rich is Singapore’s obsession with order, predictability and control, all of which give comfort to individuals whose fortunes have recently gone down the drain in many parts of the world. It doesn’t hurt that Singapore has some of the lowest taxes in the world, including none on capital gains and most foreign dividends. But it also has relatively secretive private banking laws and zero harassment from paparazzi or protesters, whose activities are narrowly proscribed by Singaporean authorities, further creating an aura of order and stability. Ronen Palan, a professor of international political economy and an expert on offshore wealth and tax havens at City University in London, believes that while Switzerland is “clearly suffering” from the pressure put on its private-wealth sector from the European Union and the U.S., Singapore is a “very secretive location” where many—Asians in particular—believe their wealth will be spared scrutiny from Western regulators.

“For all the flack that Singapore has gotten for chewing gum and caning, it shows that things are orderly here. Corporate governance is in order, the ruling party is stable and is not going anywhere, things actually function—everything works,” says Indonesian-born millionaire Frank Cintamani, as he sits in front of gold-embellished couture dresses, wearing a three-piece gray Lanvin suit paired with black brogue shoes. It is Haute Couture Week in Singapore, an event he leads after luring it away from Paris. A Singaporean citizen who has spent a large part of his life living in hotels and who frequently dons diamond brooches, he also leads Men’s Fashion Week and Women’s Fashion Week, and has a host of other interests and investments, including in publishing.

“Rich people can have fun anywhere,” he says, as the sound of a Ferrari zooming past distracts his train of thought, while he directs a stream of models, designers and fashion writers coursing through a tent next to the Marina Bay Sands, where his fashion show is being held. Though sitting down, he constantly has to stand up briefly to greet the ultra-wealthy fashion aficionados who recognize him. “But over here they know they will always be safe, their privacy respected and their investments solid,” he says.

Cintamani, 36, interrupts the discussion on Singapore’s economic environment, drawing attention to two men—one in a three-piece black suit, and another in a futuristic-looking white top embellished with silver at its collar and reaching past his knees over skinny white pants with platform shoes—and a woman in a white two-piece, loose-fitting suit with silver heels.

“See those guys over there? The three people in the corner? Their combined worth is between six to seven billion U.S. dollars—and I know this for a fact,” he says. “This is why we need to do this here,” referring to his fashion ventures. He then points out that one of Mongolia’s richest men, with wide interests in property and a keen investor in Singapore’s real estate, is also in attendance at the couture show. Cintamani, whose business card carries several logos from ventures in magazine publishing to fashion shows, declines to say where his family’s wealth comes from, describing it as “sensitive.” (His spokesperson says much of it comes from the oil and gas business.)

The irony, as with other earlier boomtowns, is that the very sources of Singapore’s success may ultimately prove its undoing. The gushers of cash that have flooded Singapore in recent years have put relentless upward pressure on property prices, with private-home prices rocketing 59 percent higher since the second quarter of 2009, even as real-estate prices have tumbled or gone sideways in much of the rest of the world. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was only admitting the obvious, some analysts say, when in a recent interview he said that the country’s property boom is “almost a bubble.”

Singapore’s “Gini coefficient”—the best-known economic measure of income disparity—is the second highest in the developed world. Wealth-X, a private consultancy that provides intelligence on the world’s uber-rich, estimates some 1,400 ultra-high-net-worth individuals now hold more than $160 billion of wealth in Singapore. Even upper-middle-class natives find themselves unable to afford houses in some parts of the city-state, such as Sentosa Cove, where more than 60 percent of the houses are owned by foreigners. Some are put off by flashy displays of wealth, particularly when it is the wealth of foreign nationals.

The dazzling party scene, meanwhile, has brought a new kind of anything-goes culture to Singapore that is threatening the sense of order that helped make it so alluring in the first place. One of the more disturbing examples came in May 2011, when a Ferrari driver from mainland China, traveling at more than 110 miles per hour, crashed into a taxi after running a red light and killed himself, the taxi driver and a passenger. The accident triggered an outburst of anti-foreigner sentiment online, with some Facebook users creating a fake profile for the dead Ferrari driver with derisive comments against mainland Chinese. Although authorities have largely succeeded in keeping out the kinds of criminal elements that populate the shadows of casino capitals like Las Vegas and Macau, local papers don’t shy away from reports of problem gambling in Singapore’s two new casinos, with one local middle manager reportedly losing $400,000 in a single bet. On a recent Saturday night near Pangaea, seven police officers were seen arresting a topless Caucasian male for alleged drunken and disorderly behavior.

The irony, as with earlier boomtowns, is that the very sources of Singapore’s success may ultimately prove its undoing.

Public expressions of anger or dissatisfaction with Singapore’s transformations are limited, since protests for the most part are prohibited. Yet signs of unhappiness are multiplying. The city-state’s ruling party retained power with its lowest percentage of votes in Singaporean history in 2011, and a thriving blog culture is prodding officials to consider some changes to the country’s economic model, including the creation of a bigger social safety net for the poor, which likely would require higher taxes. Indeed, several of the country’s leaders—who for decades staunchly defended long-standing policies of prioritizing economic growth above personal freedoms and welfare—seem to be doing some soul-searching. In his New Year’s Day message, Prime Minister Lee called on the nation to balance material goals with its “ideals and values. We are not impersonal, calculating robots, mindlessly pursuing economic growth and material wealth,” he said.

The rich in Singapore now find themselves with “new avenues to display their wealth,” according to Garry Rodan, a fellow at the Asia Research Center at Murdoch University, while “aged Singaporeans with grossly inadequate savings can be seen on the streets collecting plastic bottles for recycling.” Opportunities to move up the ladder, he says, are shrinking.

On the real-estate front, meanwhile, lawmakers have tried to deal with sky-high prices by introducing a 15 percent stamp duty on foreign purchases of private residential homes. Last year, the government also removed a program that allowed wealthy foreigners to “fast track” their permanent residency if they kept at least $8.1 million in assets in the city-state for five years, though investors who plan to dedicate a few million to help companies in Singapore grow are still welcomed. Authorities have repeatedly tightened the city-state’s tight casino-control laws, already among the strictest in the world, to restrict some locals from patronizing gaming floors and to punish casinos if they fail to keep problem gamblers away.

Optimists say those steps may, in the long run, prevent Singapore from going down the same road as earlier cities-of-the-moment that burned bright and then flamed out, like Dubai. “The writing was on the wall in Dubai in 2007—we had made our money and it was time to move on,” says Chris Comer, a property developer who is bringing the exclusive Nikki Beach franchise—a global chain of beach party clubs in St. Tropez, Miami and St. Barts, with girls in elaborate bikinis and patrons who show up in Caribbean pirate outfits or zebra body paint—to Singapore. Having lived in and out of Singapore for 17 years, Comer now resides in an oceanfront condominium in Sentosa Cove, a gated enclave of ultra-wealthy residents on an island 20 minutes from Singapore’s city-center. His beach club venture—one that he insists is “recession-proof”—is particularly well-matched for the city-state, he says, nodding at the seven pages of used Lamborghini listings in the online auto classifieds.

“Singapore is my home, this is my base, this is where I feel safe,” says Comer, speaking in the loft of his four-story office in a shophouse on Singapore’s Ann Siang Hill precinct, a preserved historic area just off Chinatown.

Others aren’t so sure about the future. They see youths burning through cash, and rich people who are totally oblivious to the sacrifices made by earlier generations that helped places like Singapore climb from Third World to First World status in just a few decades. “You see this happening often, one generation would make the wealth, and the next two or three will lose it,” Ault says. Moreover, “there is a mathematical certainty that there is going to be an economic tsunami” at some point, adds Ault, who trained as an economist with degrees from Oxford and the London School of Economics and worked on Wall Street before becoming a nightclub owner.

Others are worried secretive Singapore won’t be able to stay that way. The city-state, defiant against the label “tax haven,” has taken steps to ensure its tax treaties allow for more information exchange on tax dodgers, most recently firming a double-taxation agreement with Germany. (A spokesperson from the Monetary Authority of Singapore says it works hard to report any “suspicious transactions.”) Singapore is also forced to comply with new financial regulations—including the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a way for the U.S. to ensure its taxpayers do not shirk payments through offshore holdings. This, Palan says, is a “game changer” for the private-wealth industry and will be used as a model by other countries.

Still, in the nightclub business—in which there’s always another night, and more models and rich kids waiting in line for an exclusive party—it pays to be positive. At least that’s how Ault, the highflying owner of Pangaea sees it. He figures that even if things do go awry, “Asia is better positioned.” Singapore, his city of choice, he says, is “doing all the right stuff to stay on top.”

By S Ramesh | Posted: 30 July 2012 1419 hrs

SINGAPORE: Global management consulting firm Hay Group believes that despite sentiments of a slowdown emerging in the global economy, fresh graduates will fare better this year, with employers in Singapore offering a higher base salary compared to their 2011 cohorts.

According to the Hay Group’s Fresh Graduate Pay Survey 2012 conducted in June, the average starting monthly pay for degree holders without honours is S$2,678; S$2,766 for those with Honours (Second Lower and below); and S$2,882 for those with Honours (Second Upper and higher).

79 companies across general industries in Singapore took part in the survey.

The results showed that jobs in engineering ranked at the top, commanding the highest average starting salary of S$2,777 per month for degree holders (without honours). This was followed by jobs in research and development (S$2,764 per month) and merchandise operations (S$2,742 per month).

For diploma holders, jobs in merchandise operations commanded the highest average starting salary of S$1,934 per month, with design/creative jobs coming in second (S$1,915 per month) and jobs in research and development following suit (S$1,903 per month).

The average starting pay for diploma holders is S$1,866 per month.

-CNA/ac

Singapore workers earning more
Mid-point in range of incomes up 5.3% from last year to hit $2,633

By Cai Haoxiang

THE monthly salary of Singapore workers went up this year, for the second year in a row.

Their median income – the mid-point in a range – was $2,633 in June compared to $2,500 a year ago, a 5.3 per cent increase led by economic growth and a tighter labour market.

The rise is even steeper when part-time workers are taken out of the equation, according to a Manpower Ministry report yesterday on the earnings and employment of residents, including permanent residents.

It shows full-time workers’ median income to be $2,925 a month against $2,708 last year – an 8 per cent rise.

After taking into account projected inflation of about 5 per cent, their real wages rose by an estimated 2.8 per cent, said the ministry’s Singapore Workforce 2011 report.

But for all workers, including part-timers, the real wage increase was just 0.1 per cent, said labour economist Hui Weng Tat of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

Noting the Government’s goal to raise real median incomes by 30 per cent over 10 years, Dr Hui said it would require an average increase of 2.7 per cent a year.

‘Attention thus needs to be focused on improving the wages and work opportunities of the 194,700 part-time workers, as they are increasing in number, and half of them indicate they want to work longer hours,’ he added.

The report also disclosed for the first time median income figures that include the Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions of employers.

With CPF, the income of full-timers soared to $3,250, which is $250 more every month than last year.

Explaining the new move, a ministry spokesman said employer CPF contributions form a ‘significant part of compensation… and can be used for housing and health care’.

Hence, it will publish the figures yearly to give ‘a more complete picture of residents’ income growth’, she said.

The rise in income this year builds on last year’s increase, which was a turnaround from the decline caused by the 2008-09 recession.

Last year, the strong economic recovery lifted the monthly income by 3.3 per cent, from $2,420.

This year, the increase is fuelled largely by strong employment growth, especially in the services sector, coupled with curbs on the inflow of unskilled labour and stricter conditions for employing skilled foreign workers, said economists interviewed.

‘Wages were pushed higher with the big projects like the Marina Bay Sands and Sentosa resorts needing a lot of labour, together with the tightening of foreign worker inflows like increased levies,’ said National University of Singapore economist Shandre Thangavelu.

These moves pushed the employment rate to a new high of 78 per cent for residents aged 25 to 64.

At the same time, immigration conditions were tightened, causing a decline in the number of permanent residents.

As a result, the resident labour force went up by just 1.6 per cent to 2.08 million, compared to an annual average of 2.6 per cent in the past 10 years.

On the other hand, more older residents and women were working this year.

A record 61.2 per cent of residents aged 55 to 64 were working, up from 59 per cent a year ago.

Similarly, with women aged 25 to 54, the number of employed rose to 73 per cent, from 71.7 per cent last year.

Labour leader Cham Hui Fong cheered the increases in these two groups, saying they show that efforts of unionists are paying off. Said Ms Cham, assistant secretary-general of NTUC: ‘Companies are now prepared to hire and spend time training these workers.’

Also, more government funds are available, she added, citing the Advantage scheme that helps companies redesign jobs for older workers.

Another is the Inclusive Growth Programme, which gives grants to companies to invest in high-tech equipment and redesign jobs for low-wage workers in return for raising their pay.

‘We hope these schemes will continue because we need to build up the momentum,’ said Ms Cham.

CNA
14 September 2011

SINGAPORE: Fresh graduates salaries are showing an upward trend this year, according to the Fresh Graduate Pay Survey by global management consultancy the Hay Group.

The findings showed engineering jobs are still in demand and fresh engineering graduates can expect to earn about $2,745 per month.

This is slightly higher than the starting salaries for jobs in the legal (S$2,738) and production (S$2,728) services for fresh graduates.

The survey in July this year drew participation from 100 companies across general industries in Singapore.

It showed that average starting salary for degree holders was S$2,593 per month.

Diploma holders are also expected to fare better this year in the jobs market.

Their average starting pay was $1,799 per month.

Design and creative jobs topped the list of hot jobs for diploma holders who can command slightly higher starting salaries of about $1,900 per month.

The survey said employers place a premium of 44.7 per cent for degree holders over diploma holders in terms of starting salaries.

The premium which employers place on a master’s degree over general degree holders is lesser at 11.1 per cent.

One in four employer surveyed said they pay premiums to male employees who have completed National Service, with the average premium at S$166.

ST, 17 August 2011
By Theresa Tan

MOST Singaporean singles here long to be married, but are just leaving it to fate. Few actively hunt for a spouse, and believe that Mr or Miss Right will appear magically when Cupid strikes.

That’s one of the main findings from new research on Singaporean Chinese singles by Professor Gavin Jones, a demographer with 45 years’ experience who has been based at the Asia Research Institute here since 2003.

He also found out that most singles here will not lower their expectations of a life partner just for the sake of marrying. Many are just too busy with work to hunt for a mate, while some avoid the dating market for practical reasons.

For example, less educated men who feel they don’t have enough money to start a family or find it hard to get a girlfriend, he noted.

When it comes to finding a husband, his findings showed that Singaporean women place great emphasis on a man’s ‘economic success’. They want a man who has greater – or at least equal – earning power.

One study respondent, a security guard in his 30s who earns about $1,500 a month, said that his girlfriend broke up with him because his pay was too low.

Prof Jones noted this materialistic streak is ‘very widespread’ and ‘more marked’ among East Asian women.
Continue reading “Singaporeans want to marry but don’t look actively for mate: Study” →

LTC Kelvin Khong pulls his F-15SG into a combat turn followed by a vertical spiral climb.

Some things never change. Some things change a lot.

1. Extra Space
www.extraspace.com.sg
Hotline: 6304 3200
Extra Space IMM Jurong Building
2 Jurong East St 21
#02-71 IMM Building
Singapore 609601
Tel: 6304 3208
Fax: 6491 1244
Email: imm@extraspace.com.sg
Extra Space Clementi Ave 6 West Coast
No. 1 Clementi Loop
#02-03
Singapore 129808
Tel: 6304 3211
Fax: 6491 1245
Email: westcoast@extraspace.com.sg

2. Store-It! Self Storage
www.store-it.com.sg

Pasir Panjang Road Facility
Harbourside 1
1 Boon Leat Terrace
Singapore 119843
Tel: 6271 2762
Fax: 6271 2393
Email: info@store-it.com.sg

3. Lock and Store
www.lockandstore.com.sg
37 Keppel Road (opp. Singapore Railway Station)
#01-03 Tanjong Pagar Distripark
Singapore 089064
Tel: 6325 7351
Fax: 6224 9041
E: info@LockAndStore.com.sg

4. Big Orange Self Storage and Warehouse Solutions Singapore
http://www.bigorange.com.sg

Big Orange Corporate Office
74B Tras Street, Singapore 079013
Tel: 1800 ORANGE = 1800 244 6726
Email: sales@bigorange.com.sg

Branches:
Big Orange at Woodlands
14 Woodlands Loop, Singapore 738363
Tel: +65 6590 3761
Email: woodlands@bigorange.com.sg

Big Orange at Bukit Batok
5 Bukit Batok Street 22, Singapore 659583
Tel: +65 6590 3762
Email: bukitbatok@bigorange.com.sg

Big Orange at Hougang
111 Defu Lane 10, Singapore 539226
Tel: +65 6590 3763
Email: hougang@bigorange.com.sg

Big Orange at Tampines
37 Tampines St 92, Singapore 528885
Tel: +65 6590 3764
Email: tampines@bigorange.com.sg