Singapore work pass salaries, foreigner intake and rents in 2011

Just after increasing foreign worker levy in the budget, Singapore government is also fast to increase minimum fixed monthly salary bar for S-Pass and Employment Pass holders in Singapore. From July 2011 an Employment Pass (EP) will be granted to minimum salary of 2,800 SGD, 300 SGD increase from current level of 2,500 SGD.

Minimum fixed monthly
Work Pass Type	Type of Applicants	Before 2011	After 2011
Employment Pass P1	Professional, Managerial, Executive or Specialist jobs	7000	8000
Employment Pass P2	Professional, Managerial, Executive or Specialist jobs	3500	4000
Employment Pass Q1	Professional, Managerial, Executive or Specialist jobs	2500	2800
S-Pass	mid-level skilled workers (i.e. technicians and retail executives)	1800	2000

Fixed monthly salary refers to the total regular monthly payments to a foreign employee, including basic salary. According to Ministery of Manpower, the "fixed monthly salary" must not vary in quantum from month to month and must be paid to the foreign employee on a monthly basis, regardless of his performance.

According to The Straits Times, Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong said:

"We need to raise the qualifying thresholds for Employment Pass and S-Pass applicants accordingly to keep pace with the local PMETs, and encourage companies to be more selective in hiring foreign talent."

These measures will make "foreign talent" more expensive and will make companies to consider locals over foreigners. This will also decrease the number of foreigners coming to work and live in Singapore.
This is a bad news for companies who intend to hire foreigners and foreigners who would like to work in Singapore. But for people already in Singapore, it will have positive results. I am very interested in the effects of these changes to rental prices in Singapore. Foreigners are very important for Singapore rental demand since 80% of the local population have their own flats. Now, take a look at the paragraph from The Straits Times (same news article):

"The number of Employment Pass holders has jumped by more than 20 per cent in the past year, from 115,000 in 2009, to 142,000 last year. For S-Pass holders, the number rose from 82,000 to 98,000."

The numbers are astonishing and very well inline with growth rate of 2010. It is not hard to see what was fueling the rents last 2 years. 43,000 new foreigner families more in a single year! Actually much more. We should also consider 29,000 PR approvals because these are no more EP or S-Pass holders but still in the island. Assuming a family of 3 for these 29,000 approvals, and add around 9000 families more. In 2010, 52,000 new rental unit demand emerged.

We have already written about the possibility of rental price correction in Singapore in 2011 due to increased rental unit supply. In 2011, demand outlook also looks weaker with slower growth and these new salary threshold will decrease the demand.

This is also good news for local PMETs since their salaries may increase at the end:

Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) president Lawrence Leow said it could also lead to the salaries of locals going up, as companies would have to adjust the pay of their existing staff. 

“If I have a local worker who has worked with me for two years and he earns $2,000, and I hire a new S-Pass holder at the same salary, it’s only right to increase his pay to reflect his working experience,” he said. 

While Mr Gan stressed that the Government has and will continue to “tilt the balance in favour of local PMETs”, he cautioned against closing the door on foreigners. 

“Foreign talent continues to be critical for our growth and these talents will help grow the economic pie, so that everyone will have a bigger share. Otherwise we will lose our attractiveness as an investment destination and we will not be able to create good jobs for locals.”

Source: The Straits Times

Remote Control Kites with LED

In a hot Singapore night, you can suddenly see a colorful UFO flying in the sky. And then another, then one more! Do not panic, they are not UFO. they are remote control models flying around Riverside point (Clarke Quey). Walk closer and you will see that these RC models are actually remote controlled led night kites. They are designed and made in Singapore, from canvas, carbon fibre and covered by colorful LED lights.

These unique RC kites are produced and marketed by Go Fly Kite.com Pte Ltd, a Singaporean company. These kites are very light, easy to carry and you can fly them in the day and night. I have watched them climb incredible heights and they look very crash resistant. They are actually quite manoeuvrable, they are able to hover, loop, roll, inverted flying, axel roll and fly in confined areas.

Where do they fly these RC kites? You can see night time kite flyers in various parks of Singapore such as Jurong Central Park, West Coast Park as well as open spaces like Marina Barage and Senkang Field. They usually gather and fly their kites in the weekend.

Below is a video showing a demonstration fly by Go Fly Kite employees and some advanced fliers.






Go Fly Kite is founded by Michael Lim, 53. He is one of those lucky ones who turns his hobby to a business After flying remote control planes and helicopters in his free times, he he decided to switch his business combining his hobby with his profession. He has merged the remote control plane and kite to create the kites he sell today. He designs these kites personally and produces them in Singapore.

When you watch them flying, it may look like it is easy to manoeuvre them but it is not. Learning to fly them takes a lot of effort.

UPDATE:
Since the Riverside point location is closed due to MRT construction, they can see these led night kite flying around Marina Bay Sands.

Go FlyKite Scorpion Source: GoFlyKite.com

LED-fitted kites range from 79.9 SGD for a 2.7 sq m kite to 579.9 SGD for a 10 sq m kite, which can hold 702 bulbs and weight 4.5 kilograms. There is a cheaper alternative though. For those interested in buying one, their store is at Riverside point and they have several distributors island wide and abroad in UK, Taiwan, Indonesia and Canada.

See also Parrot AR Drone, a Wi-Fi quadricopter with 2 cameras.

Tom yum goong plus pineapple rice

Tom yum goong plus pineapple rice are my favorite pair of food in Singapore. Although these are Thai dishes, I prefer to eat them in Thai-Chinese restaurants because a little bit Chinese touch,in my opinion, makes them better. My favorite place to eat these dishes is "Maggie Thai & Chinese Restaurant" in Liang Seah Street (a famous food street in Singapore just next to Bugis Junction). This place has a simple setting, good service, delicious and reasonable priced dishes. It is also very convenient place for me, just near to Bugis junction which also has an overpriced food court in it (recently a stall employee, probably thinking that I am a tourist, tried to charge 12 Singapore dollars for a single dish so I prefer to not go to Bugis Junction food court any more). They have other good dishes which are also my favorite but these two are the most I like.

Pineapple rice plus Tom yum soup with Tiger Beer

The price is ok, the dishes I ate yesterday (see the photo above) cost me 7.50 Singapore dollars and I paid 5 dollars for a Tiger beer can. They do not bring the glass with ice which is good for me because I hate cold beer with ice!

For those who do not know tom yum, it is a soup from Thailand characterized by its distinct hot and sour flavors, with fragrant herbs. The basic broth is made of lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lime juice, fish sauce and crushed chili peppers. They usually make tom yum with prawns (tom yum goong or tom yum kung), chicken (tom yum kai), fish (tom yum pa in Laotian and tom yum pla in Thai), or mixed seafood (tom yum thale or tom yum po taek) and mushrooms. The soup is often topped with fresh chopped cilantro (coriander leaves). It is highly popular in Singapore as well as other neighbours of Thailand.

Rent in Singapore may fall in 2011

Rent in Singapore has very unique supply-demand games since most of the demand for rent comes from foreigners. Singapore has the top homeownership ratio where even majority of the bottom 20% of the population have their own flats, which is very rare in the world. This makes demand extremely responsive to economic growth which effects foreign intake.

In the demand side, 2011 will be a "normal" year compared to 2010 with respect to growth and less jobs will be created compared to 2010. This means less new comers for rental demand. Actually in terms of new comers, 2010 was an extra-ordinary year. In this period, EP holder numbers jumped from 115,000 to 142,000 (more than 20%) and S-Pass holder numbers jumped from 82,000 to 98,000. 2011 will probably not see these huge jumps given the fact that the government is willing to encourage companies to hire more locals and the growth rate will be more moderate.

On the other hand by late 2011, properties bought by investors in previous years will be completed and ready for the tenants:

Data from URA analyzed by Kim Eng indicates that 40,850 new completed units are expected to hit the market by 2015. About 9,000 of these units are due to come this year, with close to 70 percent of that coming from the rental areas outside district 9,10 and 11. 

With  a large proportion of the supply likely to be rented out, analyst expect the new supply will put some pressure on rents. Source: The Straits Times 

This means although expat choice districts of 9,10 and 11 would not see a dramatic fall in rents, properties in non-traditional renting districts will feel the pressure. The Straits Times also reported that signs of softening rents can be seen in district 15 (Katong, Siglap, Marine Parade) where homes went for 4500 SGD per month a few months ago but now can fetch something between 4000 SGD - 4300 SGD per month for rent.

What is also supporting supply is the property cooling measures introduced in Jan 2011 and aiming to cut speculators.

• Increase the holding period for imposition of Seller’s Stamp Duty (SSD) from the current three years to four years;
  
• Raise the SSD rates to 16%, 12%, 8% and 4% of consideration for residential properties which are bought on or after 14 January 2011, and are sold in the first, second, third and fourth year of purchase respectively;
  
• Lower the Loan-To-Value (LTV) limit to 50% on housing loans granted by financial institutions regulated by MAS for property purchasers who are not individuals1; and
  
• Lower the LTV limit on housing loans granted by financial institutions regulated by MAS from 70% to 60% for property purchasers who are individuals with one or more outstanding housing loans2 at the time of the new housing purchase;
  
  Source: Ministary of National Development

These measures left a lot of speculators with properties in their hands and since they do not buy for owner occupation they will have to rent them out.

But do not forget, these measures also support the demand. Lots of PRs would prefer to buy an HDB instead of paying 3500+ SGD per month to a condo but since buying a resale HDB is harder for them with the latest measures, they will prefer to rent.

Disclaimer

This blog article is to provide general information only and should not be treated as an invitation to buy or sell any property or as sales material.  Users of this report should consider this report as a one of the many factors in making their investment decision. Users should make reference to other sources of information and specific investment advice to obtain a more objective view of the property market. Asia Singapore shall not be responsible for losses suffered.

Bumper supply is on the way for Singapore private property

Will Singapore private property prices fall in 2011? Or will they rise as it happened in 2009 and 2010 even after the 4th property market cooling measures? To understand the price direction of any asset, you need to look at supply and demand. All property cooling measures up to now targetted demand side of the equation, specifically the speculative demand. But under current economic landscape of the globe, it is really really hard to predict what will happen to demand. With an interest rate rise sure even the genuine demand will decline but when will the interest rates rise (they cannot fall further since they are already near zero and inflation devil is on the rise).

Supply side is more certain (although not completely certain) and it is regularly published by URA. URA quarterly releases the real estate statistics and below is from the latest release, Release of 4th quarter 2010 real estate statistics:

As at the end of 4th Quarter 2010, there was a total supply of 65,699 uncompleted units of private housing from projects in the pipeline (see Annex E-1). Of these, 32,776 units were still unsold. These comprised 3,528 units that had been launched for sale by developers and 10,400 units which had the pre-requisite conditions for sale and could be launched for sale immediately. The remaining 18,848 units with planning approvals did not have the pre-requisite conditions for sale (see Annex B-1). Details of the number of unsold private residential units with planning approvals in the 3 market segments are given in Annex B-2. 

Of the 65,699 units, 51,078 units were expected to be completed between 2011 and 2014, of which 36,950 units were already under construction8. Developers had obtained planning approvals9 for projects making up the remaining 14,128 units (see Annex E-2).

Below is a table compiled from URA data (the numbers include the property under construction or with planning approval).

Singapore Private Home Supply by Q4 2010
Locations	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	Beyond 2015	TOTAL
City Center	3.874	2.579	5.325	4.162	4.266	660	20.866
City Fringe	2.265	2.760	5.704	6.982	790	0	18.501
Suburban	2.291	2.777	6.082	6.277	8.397	508	26.332
TOTAL	8.430	8.116	17.111	17.421	13.453	1.168	65.699

As you can see from the table, there is a property supply tsunami in 2013 and 1014 which are both significantly higher than the previous record of 14,000 apartments completed in 1998. According to The Straits Times, Ms Chua Chor Hoon from DTZ noted that "the figures can go even higher if the projects that get planning permission in the near future such as sites on the confirmed list of the government sales programme - are included":

Ms Chua's forecasts then suggest that 21,680 homes could be completed in 2014 and about 22,520 in 2015, with the total number of homes estimated to be completed from now until 2015 surging to about 78,300. 

Add in new Housing Board flats and the market could have a serious supply spike in two or three years, she added. 

The Straits Times - Home supply to spike in next few years

There is a real possibility of supply side pressure on the prices. If the interest rates increase with this supply background the prices will come down. But note that government plan to increase the Singapore population to 6.5 million and this additional 1.5 million can easily absorb all the supply if current foreign influx restrictions are eased. Also developers can slow completions, government can slow land release or even apply property heating measures if necessary. So as you can see supply is easy to see but demand is far from predictability.

Related Articles:

• Did Singapore Government cooling measures cooled the property market?
  
• Singapore property prices are up in January 2011
  
• Singapore Property Market Beyond 2011
  
• Will Singapore property prices fall in 2011?

Disclaimer

This blog article is to provide general information only and should not be treated as an invitation to buy or sell any property or as sales material.  Users of this report should consider this report as a one of the many factors in making their investment decision. Users should make reference to other sources of information and specific investment advice to obtain a more objective view of the property market. Asia Singapore shall not be responsible for losses suffered.

Did Singapore Government cooling measures cooled the property market?

2009 and 2010 were buoyant years for Singapore property market with demand fueled by low interest rates and foreigner influx exceeding the supply and pushing the property prices up to new heights. These were also the years Singapore government introduced rounds of property market cooling measures. 4 rounds of measures are introduced since September 2009, the last one in January 2011. Since free market forces were highly distorted by FED with artificially low interest rates (how can you call the current global market "free" when a group of bureaucrats in FED, not the supply and demand, decides the value of money?), Singapore government had to step in to counter balance dangerous, bubble forming forces. Now buyers and sellers are watching the market about the effects of these cooling measures. Yes, none of these cooling measures resulted in a property price decline (yet) but their aim was not to decrease the prices in the first place. They were implemented to prevent speculation and a bubble which would burst painfully.

Where the property Singapore cooling measures effective? National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan says they are. This week he gave an update on the impact of the four rounds of measures to cool the property market since 2009:

National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan revealed that resale price growth and transaction volumes have moderated in recent weeks as he fielded questions during his ministry's Committee of Supply debate. 

Quarter-on-Quarter growth in resale prices slowed from four per cent in the second and third quarters of 2010, to 2.5 per cent in the last quarter. 

For 2011, on a month-on-month basis, resale price growth slowed even further to 0.6 per cent in January and 0.7 per cent in February. Mr Mah said the resale volumes have also fallen.

Source: Property Measures kick in

There were 4 rounds of property cooling measures: September 14th 2009, Feb 19th 2010, August 30th 2010 and January 14th 2011. Mr. Tan presented that prior to the first measure quarter-on-quarter price rise of private properties was above 15% and steadily declined to 2-3% by early 2011.

Property Price Index and Cooling measures -
Source: Ministery of National Development

Mr. Mah also told that speculation is falling. Sub-sales are used to measure the speculative action. Their ratio to total transactions dived to 6-7% from 15% by the measures. A Sub-sale is a home sale where a property is bought and then sold even before it is built. Although some properties can be sold in this fashion due to a sudden cash requirement of the owner, most are speculative.

Sub-sales / Total Transactions -
Source: Ministery of National Development

For HDB resale flats first and second measures did not slow down the price rise which was between 3-4% quarter-on-quarter. But August 2010 property cooling measures were effective. These measures were:

• extension of minimum occupation period to 5 years,
  
• private property owners (including overseas properties!) who buy an HDB should sell their private property within 6 months
  
• loan quantum for existing loan servers increased to 70%
  
• speeding up new HDB completions

These are measures force the price rise rate to below 1% by early 2011. You can also see the trend is down in resale transactions per month, they were near 4000 units per monh before Sep 2009 measures and are now around 1700 per month.

Here is a link from The Straits Times presenting 4 charts from Mr. Mah's speech (the link is to a pdf file).

You can read his speech here "Speech by Minister for National Development, Mr Mah Bow Tan, at the Committee of Supply Debate on "Stability - Responding to extraordinary growth".

The measures will definitely have effect on easing property prices but there are supply/demand issues which will be more effective than the property prices:

1.  A record supply of property is about to be released in 2013 (17,111) and 2014 (17,421) which would cause prices and rents drop. This numbers are considerably more than the record numbers of 1998 (14,000).
   
   
2. Economy will grow moderately in 2011, the estimated figure is 4%. This means less jobs created compared to 2010 and less foreigner influx.
   
   
3. Private property prices went significantly up and since current interest rate levels still enables many to serve their loans a prudent and long term mortgage calculations with realistic interest rates show that private house prices are rising above the purchasing power of many Singaporeans. Dennis Ng from HousingLoanSG.com states this problem in The Business Times Property 2011 issue:
   
   "..interest rates for housing loans remain low for the next six to 12 months. ... As most housing loans span 10 to 30 years, it is prudent to use a higher interest rate - rather than the current low rates - when estimating monthly loan installments.
   
   During good times, loan rates have gone up to 4 percent or higher so this is a prudent estimate. To ensure that you do not over borrow, you might also want to cap your housing loan installments to no more than 35 per cent of your gross income ... If you want to buy a 1 million dollar property (which is a quite common mass market condo price nowadays) your household income must be over 12,000 SGD (assuming 80% borrowing). Using this price as a benchmark should the prices of mass condos go up any further, they might be beyond the affortability of most people in Singapore.
   
   Source: The Business Times Property 2011
        
4. Cooling measures left short term investors with their properties and these people will have to rent out these properties because selling now is too expensive. Combine with with the number of completed units this year onwards it is not hard to see that there will be a bumper rental supply which will probably reduce both rents and rental yields. This would make property investment less attractive in normal times. But these are not normal times. Asian rich may find property investment the only safe method to protect their wealth and create a demand fuelled by inflation.
   
   
5. Singapore dollar is appreciating against major currencies and Singapore government can chose to let it appreciate more to combat inflation. This would make the Singapore property more expensive for foreigners and can wipe a significant portion of them out of the market.  

Disclaimer

This blog article is to provide general information only and should not be treated as an invitation to buy or sell any property or as sales material.  Users of this report should consider this report as a one of the many factors in making their investment decision. Users should make reference to other sources of information and specific investment advice to obtain a more objective view of the property market. Asia Singapore shall not be responsible for losses suffered.

The Adjustment Bureau

I have watched The Adjustment Bureau on its first day in Singapore in Tampines Golden Village cinema. The director is George Nolfi, the director of The Bourne Ultimatum and one of my favorite actors, Matt Damon is the lead character so there was no way to miss the movie.

The movie is loosely based on Philip K. Dick's science fiction short story "Adjustment Team" but do not expect a classic like Blade Runner (adapted from his Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?). The trailer reminded me of The Dark City but this movie is very different and it is not actually "dark".

Spoiler alert!

Our charismatic politician David Norris (Matt Damon) meets The One, Elise (Emily Blunt), on the worst day of his career and they fall in love at first sight. But there are mysterious guys who will do whatever it takes to separate them and become more aggresive as their passion gets stronger. These guys look like the Observers in the TV Series "Fringe" (but they have hair this time) and we will get to know more about them and their reasons to keep David and Elise separated.



When I was a kid, our televisions were flooded with Brazilian and Mexican soap operas (which always had a man named Ramon either as a gardener, driver or a house keeper) where a man and woman wants each other more than everything but all the forces of the TV show tries hard to separate them. Here the separative force is more strong and transforms this already explored and boring theme into a good romance/thriller with a science fiction background. A gigantic bureaucracy, loosely religious beliefs and figures of Abrahamic religions, reluctantly controlling the fate of the mankind is depicted smoothly and well supports the love theme which is otherwise explored many times.

The chemistry between Matt Damon and Emily Blunt is very realistic and the movie achieve to deliver its message about love, fate, free will and the powers beyond our reach and controlling our lives.

iPad2 revealed - iPad versus iPad2

iPad sold 9 million units around the world in just 9 months and before its anniversary, iPad2 is revealed. iPad2 has 2 cameras, front one is for FaceTime video call as in iPhone4 and the other one is to take photo. iPad2 is 33 percent thinner and it weights less. And unlike iPad which only comes in black color, iPad2 will be released in black and white. And better the price did not change, it will have the same price tag with iPad!

iPad2 could be connected to any computer screen with HDMI so it will be possible to use it on larger screen.

Apple spectacularly created a post PC/laptop world by the products it rolled out in the recent years. It has sold around 100 million iPhones since 2007 and sold 15 million iPads just in 9 months. Apple will start to sell iPad2 by March 11th 2011.

iPad versus iPad2
		iPad	iPad2
Price	-	499 USD	499 USD
Camera	-	No camera	2
Screen	-	9.7''	9.7''
Weight	-	730 gram	590 gram
Processor	-	1 GHz Apple A4	Double core A5
Capacity	-	16,32,64 GB	16,32,64 GB
Thickness	-	13.4 mm	8.8 mm
Battery life	-	10 hours (video)	10 hours (video)
Wireless	-	WiFi + 3G	WiFi + 3G
Color	-	Black	Black, White

When will ipad2 be in Singapore? It is not certain yet and unfortunately Singapore is not in the list of 27 - including Japan and Australia where it will be launched by March 25 2011. 

Best time to apply for PR in Singapore

Being a Singapore Permanent Resident is one of the most important steps to immigrate to Singapore as a resident. As we have covered recently it is relatively hard to get Singapore PR since 2009 compared to 2006 - 2008 period and a lot of permanent resident applications are rejected due to effort of the government to control/reduce the intake of foreigners. From the chart below you can see that the Singapore PR approval numbers significantly fell to 29,265 approvals in 2010 from heights of 2008. This is a 63% drop in approvals compared to 2008.

When is the best time for Singapore Permanent resident application? For individuals, the best recommended time to apply for Singapore Permanent Residency is after 2 years of employment in Singapore. I believe it is best to complete 2 full years as tax resident and apply PR after second tax notification from IRAS (notification about the amount of tax you will pay based on your declaration). Documents from IRAS about your individual income tax payments are very valuable documents which shows solid/monetary contributions to Singapore and also shows that you are a stable tax resident of Singapore. An application before 2 years of employment can still get approval if the applicant has good qualities in terms of education, employment, salary, family but do not forget, less than 2 years of employment here will work against your qualifications and risk an approval by putting you behind the people with the same qualifications but more employment history in Singapore.

Number of Singapore PRs approved per year (2001 - 2010)

For individuals whose Singapore PR is rejected previously, the best time to apply for Singapore PR is after waiting for the stated period in the rejection letter. For example if ICA requested you to apply 2 years later, they mean it and it is best to wait for 2 years. If in the rejection letter, ICA does not mention any date to reapply, the shortest period to reapply after rejection letter date is 6 months. Unfortunately, some people do not take this notice seriously and reapply Singapore PR after waiting less than the stated period. For example look at this forum entry from Singapore expats:

Hi,
I(from india) am working in singapore since from oct 2007 to till date. I have applied my PR first time in Aug 2009 with my wife (married march 2009). It was rejected. they mentioned the rejection letter apply after 2 yrs. The result was same as all of my friends. Then again i applied march 2010, again it was rejected at may2010 but the letter they never said anything the date period.My wife got the student pass on May2010(8month course) before a week of PR rejection letter. I am holding S Pass(expire sep 2010).My company ready to renewal.
My Question is Shall i apply again july2010 with my wifes details.

It is not hard to see why ICA rejected his permanent resident application second time, pretty fast (just in 2 months). Although ICA clearly stated to reapply 2 years later, he chose not to take ICA seriously and reapplied just after 8 months. He greatly risked his future chance to get Singapore PR.

Currently it is advised in online forums that anyone considering Singapore PR should wait for the elections of 2011. Since many Singaporeans think Singapore PR intake should be reduced or more difficult to get, Singapore Government would continue to keep PR criteria tighter and will not increase the number of approvals. Although there is no guarantee that the criteria will be eased and more PRs will be approved after the elections of 2011, it is still better to wait now. However if everyone is listening to this advise, then there will be a rush to ICA after the elections and it will really be difficult to float up top among all these rushers and get PR.

So 2011 also does not look like the best year to apply for PR. This does not mean you should not apply if you meet all minimum criteria, have good qualifications and - more important -you really plan to permanently reside in Singapore. This just means that those days of PR approval with relatively loose criteria has long gone and the best time to apply for PR is a date after you make sure that very less works against your application. So if you have room for improvement (i.e. only worked here 1 year, Employment Pass is Q Type, etc) improve first as much as you can then apply. You will have more chance and you will probably wait less to get your PR.

Related articles:
Singapore PR (Permanent Residency) 2012 outlook
Singapore PR Rejected? Appeal or not?
Singapore PR (Permanent Residency) rejected? What to do?
Number of Singapore PRs down in 2011
Sharp decline in chances of getting Singapore PR

Singapore airconditioning too cold

After spending a month in Istanbul with 3-7°C degrees of winter, I have managed to get sick in the tropical weather of Singapore thanks to one of my customer's air conditioning. Their indoor temperature is so low that I can comfortably wear a winter jacket and can easily get sick if I do not wear something extra. In another customer, I regularly need to go out of the building to warm my self in hot and humid weather of Singapore!

It looks like these are not an isolated cases. WWF Singapore for Earth Hour 2011 has recently polled 450 people here in Singapore and - to my suprise - many complained about the air conditioning:

Some 52 per cent of respondents felt that cinemas were too cold; offices and schools followed closely with 40 per cent indicating the same. 

In order to keep themselves warm in cold offices or schools, most respondents wrap themselves in a shawl or wear a winter jacket (69 per cent), while others (another 25 per cent) would either go out for a walk in the sun, go to the washroom, or take a coffee break. 

WWF said it is focusing on the message "24 degrees or higher" in Singapore for 2011, when it comes to air-conditioning settings. 

WWF Singapore managing director Amy Ho said not only will this make for more pleasant temperatures indoors, it will also save significant amounts of energy across the country, contributing towards the fight against climate change".

Up to 66% off General Aircon Servicing for Wall Mounted Unit or Cassette/Ducted Unit (2 Price Options)

WWF is trying to determine how comfortable people currently are with air-conditioning temperatures in Singapore, and encourage individuals and organisations to set their air-conditioning temperatures at 24°C or higher.

In the typical home, air conditioning uses more electricity than anything else, and in a typical Singaporean home it probably uses more than half of the total electricity consumed. Each degree below 25°C will increase your energy consumption by 3-4%! So over cooling is not only unhealthy, it is also expensive and wastes a lot of energy.

In relatively cool season I do not use air-conditioning at all. A simple fan is usually enough. When I use the air-conditioning, I personally set the temperature to 28°C and feel very comfortable. 28°C can sound to warm for you but it is not. I have started from 25°C (most comfortable temperature for a human being) a gradually increased it to 28°C, 1°C up each week. It is all about getting used to it.

I hope the businesses can increase the indoor temperatures to 25°C so they can save energy (and the world) and we can save on medical expenses.