- Joined
- Jun 17, 2020
- Messages
- 15,573
- Points
- 113
Singapore has quietly become a retail playground for foreign mega brands, and most people did not even notice when it happened.
From Luckin Coffee to BYD to mass lifestyle chains, deep pocketed foreign firms are flooding our malls, locking up prime locations and outbidding local businesses with capital strength no SME can match.
This is not competition on equal terms. It is financial muscle driving commercial rents up aggressively, without adding real value to Singapore’s economy.
When these chains bid far above sustainable levels, landlords respond rationally. Rents rise across the board. Smaller tenants are displaced. Independent brands disappear. What looks like “vibrancy” on the surface is actually hollowing out underneath.
What value is really being created here?
No local ownership
No new intellectual property
No meaningful skills transfer
No long term stake in our economy
We get homogenised malls, fragile retail jobs and permanently higher rental baselines. Profits and pricing power are extracted elsewhere.
Singapore is being reduced to a showroom economy. We provide the land, the consumers and the foot traffic. Others take the upside.
Open markets without safeguards do not create opportunity. They erase it.
A serious government would ask hard questions. What happens to local brands. What happens to rental inflation. What happens when even retail becomes something Singaporeans can no longer own.
Open markets must be fair markets. Otherwise they are just auctions where locals always lose.
From Luckin Coffee to BYD to mass lifestyle chains, deep pocketed foreign firms are flooding our malls, locking up prime locations and outbidding local businesses with capital strength no SME can match.
This is not competition on equal terms. It is financial muscle driving commercial rents up aggressively, without adding real value to Singapore’s economy.
When these chains bid far above sustainable levels, landlords respond rationally. Rents rise across the board. Smaller tenants are displaced. Independent brands disappear. What looks like “vibrancy” on the surface is actually hollowing out underneath.
What value is really being created here?
No local ownership
No new intellectual property
No meaningful skills transfer
No long term stake in our economy
We get homogenised malls, fragile retail jobs and permanently higher rental baselines. Profits and pricing power are extracted elsewhere.
Singapore is being reduced to a showroom economy. We provide the land, the consumers and the foot traffic. Others take the upside.
Open markets without safeguards do not create opportunity. They erase it.
A serious government would ask hard questions. What happens to local brands. What happens to rental inflation. What happens when even retail becomes something Singaporeans can no longer own.
Open markets must be fair markets. Otherwise they are just auctions where locals always lose.
