Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Singapore will continue to develop the financial sector as more activities are being moved to the city-state. Mr Lee, who was speaking to 120 bankers at the hour-long Thomson Reuters Dialogue on Tuesday, added that more would be done to ease capacity constraints, such as the crunch in office space and accommodation. The financial sector in Singapore grew by some 17.5...
Foreigners
When it comes to work and play for Asian expats, Singapore is the number one choice. This is according to a recent survey by ECA International, a global human resources organisation. Singapore has maintained the top spot for ten years now but regionally, it is getting tough competition from Japan and even Hong Kong. The survey found that Singapore's infrastructure, low crime rate and lack of social and...
Singapore is the best city in the world for Asian expatriates to live in due mainly to its quality of life and low crime rate, a survey released Tuesday by ECA International showed. Sydney was rated second in the survey, with third spot shared by Melbourne and Kobe in Japan, the human resources firm said. Rounding out the top 10 list for Asian expatriates was Copenhagen in fifth spot, followed by Canberra...
Singapore has been increasingly attracting new citizens and permanent residents (PRs), who help sustain the country's economic growth. Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng said local Singaporeans alone are still not sufficient to meet the manpower demands here. He revealed the latest immigration statistics during the debate on the Prime Minister's Office budget on Wednesday. According to the figures,...
Singapore is an increasingly popular choice for Korean students. It's not just the local education system that's attracting them here. There has been a small but growing number of students who are coming to Singapore, specifically to enroll in international schools. Students at the Singapore Korean School Weekend classes at the Singapore Korean School have become the only time where many of the...
In the eyes of some, at least, there may never be a better time to slaughter one of the sacred cows of the landed home market. The idea of owning a nest in Singapore is becoming increasingly attractive to foreigners. The Government, too, has been effusive in its efforts to draw foreign talent here to build the economy. So why not relax restrictions on the sale of landed property to foreigners — and...
More American companies are feeling the heat from rising rentals for homes and offices here. About 61 per cent say their housing expenses have swelled over the past six to 12 months, according to a survey by the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Singapore, which polled 95 senior managers from US firms. The proportion is up significantly from the 42 per cent that felt so in the same poll last year,...
If you have put your money down for a newly launched private property in the first quarter of this year, there is a pretty good chance that your future neighbour may not be Singaporean. Singapore’s attractiveness to foreign talent has seen an increase in the number of foreigners putting their money down for properties here, according to a report by real estate specialists DTZ Debenham Tie Leung. An...
Last month, when German Peter Hartmann’s two-year lease on his One Chatsworth apartment expired, the landlord told him his new rent would be $13,500 — a spike of 80 per cent. The sales director, who had been paying a rent of $7,500 a month for the District 10 five-room apartment, was shocked. “The reason they gave was that the market has changed. It seems to me that there is no legal limit,” said...
Last year, St Regis Residences in the Tanglin area made the headlines, with its plush units selling at $3,000 per square foot. But the fine print packs another punch. Apart from the companies that bought apartments there, 43 of the buyers were foreigners and just 21 Singaporeans. It is a similar story at The Tate Residences on Claymore Road — 37 foreign buyers against 14 Singaporeans. RiverGate on...