Singapore overtakes Hong Kong as home to Asia's wealthy

[Mercury]

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/singapore-new-home-to-asias-wealthy/267091-2.html


(Reuters) - Singapore overtook Hong Kong as home to Asia's wealthy last year as declining stock markets hit the former British territory a lot harder than its Southeast Asian rival, according to Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management.

Hong Kong, whose stock market capitalisation slumped 16.7 percent last year, saw a sharper drop in the ranks of people with more than $1 million to invest as a larger proportion of that wealth was locked in equity.

Southeast Asia also shows stronger signs of resilience to global turbulence than the rest of Asia as buoyant domestic spending offsets struggling exports.

The number of high-net-worth individuals in Hong Kong fell 17.4 percent to 83,600 last year, compared with a decline of 7.8 percent to 91,200 people in Singapore, RBC Wealth's head of emerging markets Barend Janssens told reporters in Singapore on Wednesday.

Hong Kong had leapfrogged Singapore in 2010 after falling behind in 2008.

Faster-growing Asia had for the first time more millionaires than North America last year, according to Capgemini and RBC Wealth's latest world wealth report released on Tuesday.

The report did not provide estimates on the number of wealthy people in Singapore and Hong Kong.

Singapore, home to more Indonesian millionaires than Jakarta, has in recent years also attracted many rich people from around the world, including Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin who earlier this year gave up his U.S. citizenship.

 

[Cruxx]

36 billionaires in Hong Kong, 4 in Singapore.

 

[hairylee]

and what good does it bring to the citizens of Singapore.

 

[red amoeba]

at the same time, Singapore overtook Hong Kong as the 6th most expensive city in the world.
congrats - its time for celebration !

 

[streetsmart73]

and what good does it bring to the citizens of Singapore.

hi there


1. bro, what matters most!
2. just gdp mah.

 

[Narong Wongwan]

36 billionaires in Hong Kong, 4 in Singapore.

HK many homeless sleeping under flyovers......
Sinkieland going to allow soon that?

 

[wMulew]

and what good does it bring to the citizens of Singapore.

More then 50% of working locals don't pay income tax. How did U think the country was running? It's this rich dudes who are paying for the running of this country. Your power subsidy, workfare, help for the poor etc are finance by these pple, that's how you benefit, by not having to pay insane taxes like in the west.

 

[red amoeba]

More then 50% of working locals don't pay income tax. How did U think the country was running? It's this rich dudes who are paying for the running of this country. Your power subsidy, workfare, help for the poor etc are finance by these pple, that's how you benefit, by not having to pay insane taxes like in the west.

oh really? Then what is GST? What is so called water conservation tax? These aren't taxes?

 

[greedy and cunning]

More then 50% of working locals don't pay income tax. How did U think the country was running? It's this rich dudes who are paying for the running of this country. Your power subsidy, workfare, help for the poor etc are finance by these pple, that's how you benefit, by not having to pay insane taxes like in the west.

talking nonsense.

 

[laksaboy]

CPF is the biggest tax on disposable income in Singapore. Don't pretend that it isn't a tax.

So this:

More then 50% of working locals don't pay income tax.

is utter bullshit.

 

[escher]

36 billionaires in Hong Kong, 4 in Singapore.

If no LKY and PAP with their tentacles all over us, there might well be 72 billionares in Singapore , double that of Hong Kong.

And Singkies all will have more money and money to spend instead of being sucked of their $$$$

 

[singveld]

isn't pap genius, they can spin high taxes to become no taxes, politicans of the world should learn from lau lee.

 

[jw5]

CPF is the biggest tax on disposable income in Singapore. Don't pretend that it isn't a tax.

It's not a tax, it's a loan from you to them whereby they unilaterally determine the interest rate and the terms of repayment.

 

[red amoeba]

It's not a tax, it's a loan from you to them whereby they unilaterally determine the interest rate and the terms of repayment.

i won't call it a loan. its extortion. if loan, at least you have the freedom to set interest or say no.
its extortion because they won't return every cent back to you due to minimum sum requirement. till the day you depart this world, you won't get back every cent that you earned.

 

[streetsmart73]

More then 50% of working locals don't pay income tax. How did U think the country was running? It's this rich dudes who are paying for the running of this country. Your power subsidy, workfare, help for the poor etc are finance by these pple, that's how you benefit, by not having to pay insane taxes like in the west.

hi there


1. wake up & smell of the kopi!
2. get real too.

 

[jw5]

i won't call it a loan. its extortion. if loan, at least you have the freedom to set interest or say no.

That's why I said "they unilaterally determine the interest rate and the terms of repayment".
Meaning that they can choose not to pay you even.

 

[julyaric720]

I incline toward your idea.

 

[hairylee]

More then 50% of working locals don't pay income tax. How did U think the country was running? It's this rich dudes who are paying for the running of this country. Your power subsidy, workfare, help for the poor etc are finance by these pple, that's how you benefit, by not having to pay insane taxes like in the west.

This is the biggest bull I come across in all my years in this forum.
You can bullshit many but you cannot fool all.

 

[Mercury]

Singapore is better at some things than Hong Kong, but than Hong Kong is also far better than Singapore in other things. Singapore houses are better, we don 't live in cage houses but Hong Kong has 100,000 of these cage houses and if we are talking about economy than Singapore is also slightly to somewhat better than Hong Kong, but if we are talking about entertainment, international reconigntion, cultural influence we have to admit that Hong Kong is 10000x greater than Singapore. HK has produced most of the famous international Asian celebrities in hollywood and Asia today. You see Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Donnie Yen, Samo Hung, Chow Yun Fat, Leslie Cheung, steven chow all which are well known in Asia and in the west have made it to Hollywood, but nobody knows any Singaporean famous person. Despite the fact HK and Singapore are very close in population size Hong Kong have made themselves far more well known. Also Hong Kong Canton-pop music (never liked it myself) also made an impact in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, China even in Vietnam and Japan before during the 1980's and 1990's, something we never did either.

We need role models and well known people to represents for Singapore. Sinkies would be much better than HonKies if we didn't lack all of that.