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With the growing inflation, increases in costs of living resulting in decrease in costs of living almost back to our kampong days where we have to think twice before buying something and have to resort to “house brands” or “local cheapskate brands” instead of more quality products, someone decided its time to run an article to at least make the majority of Singaporeans feel richer.

June 26, 2008
S’pore now has 77,000 millionaires
Figure represents a rise of 15 per cent; each individual has over US$1m in net assets
By Nicholas Fang

SINGAPORE’S millionaires club last year swelled by about 10,000 people, or 15.3 per cent, to 77,000, or 1.7 per cent of the population here.

The Republic lags far behind more populous countries, such as the United States, which has over three million millionaires, but Singapore still boasts one of the world’s top 10 fastest-growing millionaires clubs.

The latest surge in the number of millionaires here - defined as those with more than US$1 million (S$1.3 million) in net assets - puts Singapore joint seventh globally in terms of growth in numbers of such wealthy individuals, said a new report.

Assets counted exclude a person’s main residence.

The annual World Wealth Report, released by Merrill Lynch and research firm Capgemini, found last year’s growth was lower than the 21.2 per cent boom in 2006.

However, Singapore’s growth was still higher than the global growth of 6 per cent to 10.1 million last year, the report said. The total wealth of these well-heeled Singapore residents grew by 17 per cent to US$379 billion.

BOOMING MILLIONAIRES CLUB
‘The average wealth of a Singapore high net-worth individual was US$4.9 million at the end of last year,’ said Mr Kong Eng Huat, South Asia market managing director with Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Mr Kong said: ‘This is a strong performance compared to the global average of US$4.04 million per individual last year, the first time the average has exceeded US$4 million.’

The Asia-Pacific region as a whole also beat the global performance, turning in millionaire population growth of 8.7 per cent to 2.8 million and a 12.5 per cent rise in combined wealth of the region’s wealthy to US$9.5 trillion.

Asian countries also dominated the list of markets with the fastest- growing millionaire populations. India topped the list, with China in second spot and South Korea and Indonesia in fourth and fifth.

In absolute numbers, the US is top of the league with an estimated 3.03 million millionaires. But growth was a mere 3.7 per cent over 2006.

Mr Kong said: ‘In the Asia-Pacific region, wealth is being created at an unprecedented rate. We are in the midst of a multi-year growth trajectory in terms of the number of high net-worth individuals in this part of the world, and also their combined wealth.’

Mr Raj Sriram, head of private banking at RBS Coutts Singapore, said it had seen continued growth among its clients’ funds. ‘At the macro level, wealth creation in Asia shows no signs of slowing.’

He added that the growing number of wealthy individuals in Asia, and Singapore in particular, was one of the reasons why the private bank had moved its international headquarters from Switzerland to Singapore two years ago. ‘Last year, we grew our business by more than 50 per cent and, going forward, we expect a healthy growth in the medium term.’

Dr Jannie Tay, executive vice-chairman of The Hour Glass watch chain, said her clientele largely comprised wealthy individuals. The chain’s business has grown in tandem with the growth in number of such individuals. Dr Tay said annual growth had been 15 to 20 per cent in the last five years.

nicholas@sph.com.sg

I mean, if S’pore’s amount of millionaires “swelled”, it also implies that we are all richer right?

Time to rely abit on foreign medias that has no such agendas..

Reuters
SINGAPORE

By Amy Tan

AH LOH almost makes ends meet by carrying coffins and hauling fish.

On a good month, the Singaporean widower takes home S$400 to his four young children — a pittance in a country where the average household income is nearly S$5000.

“Lately, there’s been less work,” said 35-year-old Ah Loh, known only by his nickname. “Before it was $500-$700. Now, the economy’s bad.”

His plight is a far cry from the images of glittering shopping malls, scrumptious restaurants and scrupulously clean streets that most visitors see of wealthy Singapore.

He has a rented roof over his head. His elderly mother cares for the children in her own cramped, squalid apartment. Public donations pay for the children’s education.

Like others in similar straits, there are no unemployment cheques for Ah Loh in the city state of four million where the jobless rate has hit its highest in 15 years. Ah Loh has to survive on his own.

“If there were people helping, it would be better. Without help, the pressures are high,” Ah Loh said in Hokkien, the most common Chinese dialect spoken in Singapore.

Singapore’s government has long rejected the notion of a welfare state, preferring short-term incentives to those in need to avoid building a reliance on government handouts.

Families shoulder part of the responsibility and more than 260 private welfare organisations take up the slack, some with the aid of public money.

But Singapore’s do-it-yourself mentality is facing its toughest test to date as the economy experiences its worst recession in 40 years, raising questions about the extent to which the government should go to help those in need.

A rapidly ageing population raises longer-term issues about pressures building on the welfare state.

“The Asian economic boom helped to postpone the need to have government giving more direct welfare paycheques,” said Associate Professor Ngiam Tee Liang, head of the National University of Singapore’s social work and psychology department.

“This is a new phase we’re entering. How can the government provide for the safety net of people when the economic pillar is not strong and the family and community pillar is also getting weakened?”

LENDING A HAND, NOT A CHEQUE

Aware of a rising call for help as thousands lose their jobs, the state decentralised and delegated social service functions last April to several Community Development Councils to try to identify those in need sooner.

It introduced short-term cash schemes, in the hundreds of dollars, but emphasised that Singaporeans would have to stand on their own feet.

“It’s lending a hand to help Singaporeans in need…not to weaken their spirit to help themselves,” Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said.

For 72-year-old Poh Ah Poh and her sister Ah Keok, S$3 worth of vegetables will feed them for two days.

The fresh greens are a luxury for the unmarried and illiterate sisters who have a monthly income of S$300 from Ah Poh’s part-time work as a cleaner.

They began working menial jobs from a young age and live in a tiny rented studio.

“We live day by day,” Ah Keok, 70, said in Hokkien.

The elderly pair did not come to the attention of a charity group or get temporary government aid until late last year.

They had exhausted their life savings five years ago when Ah Keok needed major surgery.

Singaporeans have to put away 36 percent of their salary in the Central Provident Fund (CPF), a mandatory savings scheme to finance medical bills and retirement.

State supports comes into play once a person’s CPF has been exhausted. But handouts do not come easily.

“We are careful, however, to keep the eligibility for government assistance stringent so as not to encourage an entitlement mentality,” the Ministry of Community Development said in a written reply to a Reuters question.

The government gave 2400 people just S$5.8 million in 2000 under a lone scheme which provides long-term assistance.

The long-ruling People’s Action Party’s anti-handout stance is also clear from government spending patterns.

Singapore spent almost S$10 billion, or 36 percent of its fiscal 2002 expenditure, on defence and internal security. Community development and sports, which covers welfare support, was just 2.3 percent of overall public expenditure at $648 million.

DO YOUR PART

The government prods its citizens to volunteer as community helpers to lighten society’s load.

But with most of the fast-paced population chasing ambitions to own cars, condominiums, good careers and other trappings of a good life, the volunteer rate is just 9.3 percent.

The emphasis of any handout is to get Singaporeans back into the workforce as quickly as possible.

“We try and get the family member who is able to work to find a job…to become financially independent after the period of assistance,” said Lian Tiong Thye, social services manager of the Central Singapore community council.

But short-term assistance may not do the trick for the bulk of Singapore’s needy, who are elderly, handicapped or families whose breadwinners are unable to work.

“The assistance is all mainly short-term. There is nothing to guarantee that they could go onto stable conditions,” social worker Patricia Kong said. “They need to have some additional family planning, budgeting skills. Most are very lowly educated.”

The community councils, tasked as one-stop solution centres, also have plenty to do apart from helping those who have fallen on hard times.

Emphasis has been placed on programmes to promote racial harmony after the arrest of 13 suspected Muslim militants with alleged links to the al Qaeda network. The centres also assist with job placements.

“They have to take care of the whole community under them…and they have to perform these direct welfare services. They are very torn in terms of manpower,” said one senior social worker who did not want to be named.

Some, struggling to make ends meet, have resigned themselves to their lot.

“I don’t hope for very much,” Ah Loh said. “I just want the kids to be able to take care of themselves.”

Or an alternatively view by the opposition…

(The following extract and photos are taken from SDP website)

The Tuth About Poverty

THERE IS THIS MYTH THAT Singapore is a rich country and its citizens are well-taken care of. Nothing could be further from the truth. The 1998 United Nations Human Development Index showed that Singapore ranked 28 on the list behind countries like Barbados and Malta.

In fact many households earn so little that they cannot afford to give their children pocket-money for school, resulting in the students going hungry for the day. The following is a snapshot of some of the more recent cases uncovered:

In 1999, nearly 2,000 children did not attend school because their parents could not afford it. Mohammad Hirwan is one such child. His parents earn about US $600 a month, hardly sufficient for a family in Singapore. As a result the boy\’s parents had to take him out of school when he was nine. His siblings did not fare any better. All of them dropped out of school because of poverty.
*

A technician lost his job and had no income for about half a year had to watch his two young children live on biscuits for days. A social worker said that the man had no money even to take the bus to find a job. The family was literally penniless.
*

A man with a wife who suffered from manic depression, asthma and diabetes had to stay home to look after her. Whenever he found some contract work, his children took turns to skip school to watch over her. The family had to survive on US$200 a month they received from welfare organizations.
*

A young divorcee cannot find enough money to but schoolbooks and food for her children. Most days, by 10pm, her sons ask if there is any more food. They cannot afford to eat and live mainly on fried rice.

The elderly poor in Singapore lead just as tragic lives. Many have to, literally, work until they die:

*

An elderly woman in her seventies was fatally run over by a hit-and-run driver as she was returning home at 6:40 am, working as a night-shift toilet cleaner. Not only did the elderly lady have to toil in the night shift, her pay was so meagre that she could not even afford to eat lunch. To top it off she had to save to help take care of her 50-year old mentally retarded daughter.
*

Another septuagenarian woman worked as cleaner for a measly US$200 a month which she had to share with her 70-year-old sister. The sisters are so hard-up that even vegetables during meal-times are a luxury.
*

A 77-year-old toilet cleaner was on his way home around midnight after work. He couldn’t afford the fare for a bus ride and had to walk home. He was hit and killed by a car.
*

A 96-year-old woman has to go to the garbage dump to pick out odds and ends to sell to support herself.
*

A 76-year-old man ran a little business selling household provisions. His paltry income had to support middle-aged daughters who are wheelchair bound and suffering from polio since birth, and a wife who is senile and incapable of looking after herself. His problems took a dramatic turn for the worse when the Government upped the rental of his shop from US$150 to US$450 a month.

Below are some statistical indicators of the poor in Singapore:

*

In 1999 monthly wages for low-skilled workers decreased by as much as 34 percent.
*

Nearly 30 percent of households were not earning enough to afford the minimum standard of living. The Government estimates that the subsistence level in Singapore is US$600 for a household of four people—a conservative figure for a country that is consistently ranked among the most expensive cities in the world to live in.
*

Between 1998 and 1999, the average household monthly income of the poorest 10 percent of the population decreased by nearly 50 percent. The following year, the figure nose-dived by another 54 percent.
*

In 1990, the richest 10 percent of households earned 15.6 times more than the poorest 10 percent. (Households with no income-earners are excluded from this category.) By 2000, the gap widened: the richest 10 percent earned 36 times more than the poorest 10 percent.
*

The number of households with monthly incomes of less than $3,000 was 40 percent in 1998 but increased to 42 percent in 1999.
*

According to the 2000 Census, 12.6 per cent of households earned less than $1,000 per month. A monthly gross total household income of $1,500 and below is considered “poor” in Singapore.
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A more recent survey found that 16 per cent of the respondents had family members who often went hungry.
*

In 2004 37,823 households could not afford to buy their own flats or rent homes in the open market.

Because of the system, an increasing number of Singaporeans are driven to seek the help of mental professionals:

In 1990 there were 88,000 such cases. This figure escalated to 147,000 in 1998.
*

In 1990 only 8.4 percent of Singaporeans suffered from neurotic disorders such as anxiety and depression. In 1998 16.6 percent succumbed to these disorders. (This problem continues into the present with a newspaper report highlighting that more people are being diagnosed with mental disorders due to financial woes.)
*

In 1997, psychiatrists noted a sharp increase in the number of teenagers attempting suicide and attributed the phenomenon to the youths being alienated from their parents. The main reason cited is the stressful lifestyle and high cost of living.
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In 1999, a consumer health survey found that among the various Asian societies, Singaporeans are most likely to have suffered depression, stress, and fatigue. In addition, job-related stresses continue to be the biggest problems for working Singaporeans.
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In 2003, a study found that Singaporeans aged between 20 and 49 years made up 70 percent of suicide cases from 1997 to 2001. They also constitute the main bulk of cases of attempted suicides.
*

Between 1994 and 1998 the number of divorces shot up from 3,772 to 5,651 cases.
*

Social workers attribute this occurrence to intense stress experienced by workers who have households, children and aging parents to take care. National figures compiled by the Registry of Births and Deaths show that on average, 1 person takes his/her own life in Singapore every day.

Visitors often remark about the tidiness and orderliness of Singapore. It is because of such an impression that makes the cases of poverty described in the earlier paragraphs so hard to believe.

The reason why the poor in Singapore are not more visible is that the Ministry of Community Development and Sports conduct frequent raids through its Destitute Persons Service, looking for and picking up vagrants. If Singapore seems to have less destitute, it is not because the numbers are not present. The real reason is that the PAP Government is just much more efficient in clearing the streets of homeless people.

For all the hype claiming that Singapore is a near-paradise, 20 percent of its citizens indicated that they want to leave the country, predominantly because of the stressful lifestyle and high cost of living. These would-be émigrés are mainly from the strata of younger, higher-income professionals.

With the costs of living rising, or at least not decreasing, and wages continuing to be depressed, Singaporeans are going to facing increasingly dire economic times. Without any rights, their problems will persist.

Note that I am not an SDP supporter, as IMO they can describe problems but cannot solve them. However, they are still useful in providing alternative, if not more accurate overview of what is really happening in Singapore.

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