Blowin’ In The Wind

Posted: 03 Dec 2010 12:16 AM PST

 Singapore is more expensive than Central London, according to ECA International’s cost of living survey. The current median income in Singapore for fully employed residents (not foreigners), however, is almost half that of London last year.

AsiaOne reported, referring to the Singapore Ministry of Manpower’s labour force survey:

The median monthly income from (sic) residents who are fully employed climbed remarkably fast by 4.2 per cent in the past year to S$2,710, much higher than the 0.5 per cent increase in 2009.

That’s just more than half the median income in London last year.

Britain’s Office for National Statistics says:

Median full-time weekly earnings in London were £627, significantly higher than in other regions, where they ranged from £436 in the North East to £514 in the South East.

The monthly median income in London then, at £627 a week, works out to £2,508 (more than S$5,100).

That’s the figure for last year. I could not find the figures for this year on the Office for National Statistics website.

See the ECA International press release: Singapore climbs to eighth most expensive Asian city. More expensive than Singapore are Tokyo, Nagoya,Yokohama, Kobe, Seoul, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The survey shows the cost of living for expats is just 2 per cent higher in Hong Kong than in Singapore.

Singapore is the 42nd most expensive city in the world, according to the survey, more expensive than Central London (50th) and Brussels (46th), but still cheaper than New York (39th) and Manhattan (28th). Yes, they are counted separately. Check out the press release. The world’s second most expensive city, after Tokyo, is Luanda.

The survey covers the cost of:

Food: Groceries; dairy produce; meat and fish; fresh fruit and vegetables
Basic: Drink and tobacco; miscellaneous goods; services
General: Clothing; electrical goods; motoring; meals out.

But it does not cover the cost of accommodation, utilities (electricity, gas, water costs), car purchase and school fees because these are usually paid for separately in expatriate packages.

The Singapore median income for fully employed residents (S$2,710) is a little less than the median household income in Hong Kong last year.

A Hong Kong government report says:

Based on the results of the General Household Survey, the median monthly domestic household income for Q4 2009 was $17,500.

That’s HK$17,500 (more than S$2,900).

The Hong Kong report gives a breakdown of the monthly household income. Here it is:

So 2.8 per cent of the households in Hong Kong have a monthly income of HK$100,000 or more while 8 per cent have less than HK$4,000.

I couldn’t find anything so simple for Singapore.

Here is “the average monthly household income from work among employed households by decile”, from the poorest 10 per cent to the richest 10 per cent. That’s not quite the same as showing which income group makes up what percentage of the population like Hong Kong does. The figures here are taken from Key Household Trends 2009 issued by the Singapore Department of Statistics in August this year.

People must be able to feel at home here

SGX chief Magnus Bocker shakes hands with ASX chief Robert Elstone this week. Picture: AFP Photo Source: AFP

Merger must be tweaked to succeed

SINGAPORE Exchange’s proposed $8.4 billion takeover of ASX Ltd, the operator of the Australian Securities Exchange, is going to have to be changed in Australia’s favour to succeed.

I say Australia’s favour rather than ASX’s favour, because the bid is already generous enough to succeed commercially. It is in the political arena that it will finally pass or fail, and there it is already in danger of defeat.

Singapore Exchange’s superior price-to-earnings valuation gives it a more highly valued takeover currency and this is being used to produce a share-and-cash offer that ASX’s shareholders will want.

But in Canberra, where power is so finely balanced, reaction to the takeover yesterday signalled that even if the Gillard government backed an ASX-Singapore Exchange combination, Parliament was unlikely to clear the way by lifting ASX’s 15 per cent legislative shareholding cap.

The Greens said the takeover was not in Australia’s interests and would not be supported, depriving the government of its lower-house majority. Queensland independent Bob Katter said the merger was lunacy, and independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott didn’t immediately respond, but will surprise if they come out in favour.

The opposition was all over the place – officially pro-foreign investment and undecided, but wary that the Singapore government has a 23.5 per cent non-voting stake in the Singapore Exchange, and wondering out loud whether total capitulation is necessary to open the door to Asia’s capital markets.

The Nationals hate the deal. Barnaby Joyce said yesterday it would crater Australia’s financial services industry. And the Liberals at the very least don’t like it: shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said it was a move by a regional financial market competitor to acquire ”our own stock exchange” and said Australia’s national interest in the marriage had not been demonstrated.

No obvious alliance looms between Labor and the Coalition to overcome opposition from the greens and independents, in other words, and the Gillard government’s body language is also cool. Prime Minister Julia Gillard noted that Australia was a great free trading nation but Treasurer Wayne Swan detailed the number and height of the regulatory hurdles the merger needed to clear, and promised to examine it ”extensively, carefully and methodically”.

The two exchanges and their advisers need quickly to take on the politics and work towards re-balancing the terms of the takeover. Australia does need an umbilical link with Asia’s capital markets, and this is probably the best available.

It catches up with reality, in a sense. A decade ago, Australian brokers earned two-thirds of their revenue from the domestic market. Today, close to half their income comes from Asian hedge funds and other investors in the region, and it is common for trade in top Australian stocks to be dominated by Asia.

It will take several years before the stocks that trade here and the stocks that trade in Singapore completely

co-mingle because the Australian exchange is a significantly lower-cost trading system. If all stocks are listed on both exchanges, trading will gravitate here, undermining the Singapore platform. Singapore will over time adopt ASX technologies and pull its costs down, however, increasing its competitiveness in Asia, where it is already the cheapest exchange, and opening the way for it and the ASX to begin dual-listing major stocks.

The big negative in the proposed marriage is that the world-leading technology, such as the Chess settlement system that ASX has introduced, is the productivity enabler, but ASX and its shareholders are the junior partners in the merged business.

Shareholders are paid handsomely, but only four ASX directors will sit on a 15-strong holding company board that will sit above the two exchanges, and the highest-ranked Australian director, current ASX chairman David Gonski, will be deputy chairman of the merged operation.

This is understandable in a commercial sense. The growth premium that the market loads into Singapore Exchange shares means that it is the senior partner by value, even though it still earns less money.

But the reaction in Canberra yesterday showed that the deal in its current shape is politically untenable. It is true, as both ASX and Singapore Exchange are pointing out this week, that after taking over ASX, the Singapore Exchange is hardly likely to make decisions that hurt the value of the investment.

The message from Canberra is, nonetheless, that for the deal to become politically palatable, its terms must change, to give ASX’s leaders a greater say in the destiny of the merged business. One obvious step is an increase in the number of ASX directors on the proposed holding company board.

Consider the next possible step – an alliance or merger with the Hong Kong Exchange – and the potential becomes clear. China is Australia’s most important trading partner and the ASX cohort in the merged entity would almost certainly back a Hong Kong Exchange alliance.

Whether Singapore Exchange’s leadership would feel the same way is less clear: the two Asian exchanges have been head-on competitors over the years.

Singapore’s ill-thought population policy

Furry Brown Dog

Much attention in the past few years have been focused on the Singapore government’s liberal and generous immigration policies designed to attract foreign talent and labour which the government insists is necessary to maintain a sizeable workforce, given Singapore’s extremely low fertility rate. The influx of immigrants have caused depressed wages and sky-rocketing property prices. Lesser attention has been paid towards the causes of low fertility, although Lucky (among others) has written about it here.  Both the Temasek Review and The Online Citizen wrote about this as well.

To sum up their argument, the government’s decision to embark on a large-scale social engineering project of depressing birth rates was carried through to a ridiculous extreme, which saw Singapore’s fertility rate plunge from a high of 4.66 in 1965 to 1.28 in 2008.

The social engineering project largely responsible for this decline was due to the success of the Singapore Family Planning and Population Board established in 1966.  A national campaign which was over-reaching and overly-intrusive was launched which saw the introduction of draconian measures to curb population growth through promoting coerced sterilisation and contraceptives.  Here’s an example to reinforce this point, quoted from the book Public Health in Asia and the Pacific, 2008 (pg 196):

After giving birth to her first or second child, a woman would be encouraged to go for sterilization or to use the contraceptive pill or an inter-uterine device.  If she was not willing to pursue either path, she would be visited at home by the family planning staff. If all else failed, she would also bear the brunt of higher charges for hospital delivery as well as a reduced chance of housing and a school place for her child.

This was a blatant disrespect of privacy and personal space.  Wait, there’s more. The Straits Times published an article on Aug 24th, 2008 which included two particularly poignant stories of those whom experienced the heavy hand of the family planning board:

One policy decision caused a lot of grief, though it worked: linking sterilisation to school policy. ’If you did not undergo sterilisation after your third child, he would not get priority in school,’ recalled gynaecologist Paul Tan, 68. ‘That was when people stopped reproducing.’

Working in KKH then, Dr Tan said sterilisation rates ‘went sky- high’ as doctors there performed up to nine operations a day. ‘Pregnant women came in saying ‘Doctor, I think I’m pregnant again’ like they committed a crime,’ he said.

One such woman was Madam Teo Gek Eng. In 1976, she found herself pregnant with her third child. The doctors and nurses chided her when she went for a check-up at a clinic, she said.

‘They said, ‘Your kids are so young and you’re pregnant again’,’ said Madam Teo, 55, a housewife. ‘They asked if I wanted an abortion.’  She kept her child but got ligated to ensure that her son would get priority in school. ‘I had the sterilisation certification, which had to be shown as proof to the school,’ she said. ‘All but one of my five sisters tied their tubes.’

Saleswoman Mary Koh, 56, went one step further: She had an abortion in 1976 when she became pregnant with her third child. To have the child, she and her technician husband would have had to pay a $150 delivery fee, which was called the accouchement fee.

‘It was a lot of money back then,’ she said. ‘It was a painful decision.’ Those fees were waived if the woman or her husband underwent sterilisation. The more children they had, the higher the fee.

The image of pregnant women, afraid to disclose to doctors that they were bearing another child (which in today’s world is cause for congratulations) due to the stigma associated with multiple pregnancies is something completely unconceivable and unthinkable today.

Despite its nature, the programme was lauded as a runaway success in reducing fertility rates.  Total fertility rate (TFR) was reduced to the replacement rate (2.1) by 1975 instead of 1980, as originally targeted.  However, for reasons not known, the programme persisted until 1987 when the government officially introduced the New Population Policy in an effort to selectively raise fertility rates amongst the better educated while retaining punitive measures for the lower educated.  It is worth quoting the following in full to illustrate the degree of selectivity which characterised the government’s plan:

This did not mark an abandonment of pro-natalism and, in 1987, the government went much further in its attempts to increase fertility by introducing a New Population Policy. The new package of policy measures was comprehensively but cautiously pro-natalist. A new slogan, ‘Have Three, Or More If You Can Afford It’, replaced the old ‘Stop at Two’. Like the old anti-natalist policy, the new one relied upon a variety of policy instruments. The higher level of tax relief was extended to the third child and eligibility for the enhanced child relief scheme (first introduced in 1978 to encourage mothers with ‘special educational qualifications’ to participate in the workforce) was reduced from five passes to three passes at Ordinary Level in the GCE examinations for women who were taxed separately from their husbands.

Priority in primary school registration was extended to all third children and the maximum period of unpaid childcare leave for mothers in the civil service was increased to four years. Compulsory counselling before and after abortion for women with some secondary education and fewer than three children was introduced. Sterilization incentives were abandoned except for those with no Ordinary Level passes and with three children. These are just some of the detailed policy measures embodied in the new legislation, but the way in which the intended impact of the policies differs according to the educational attainment of women is obvious.

Tax incentives were not only structured to provide maximum incentives for the better off and better educated to have more babies, but also designed to encourage this group to start reproduction earlier and to shorten birth intervals. This was reinforced by the changes introduced in the 1989 budget, which doubled annual income tax relief from S$750 to S$1500 for the first, second and third child and extended the higher rate to the fourth child born on or after 1 January 1988. At the same time, the maximum claim for each child was increased from S$10,000 to S$15,000. The Housing Development Board also participated in the new pro-natalism by relaxing restrictions on access to larger housing units, essentially by allowing families with three (and sometimes four) children to jump the queue and to sell their existing apartments on the open market even if they had stayed in them for less than five years. All these policies were expected to exert a different influence on different groups in Singapore society according to education, income and their family size at the time the new policy was introduced in March 1987.

This inevitably raises the question of why it took twelve long years (1975-1987) for the government to push pro-natalist policies.  Was it not clear that the target replacement rate was reached in 1975?  Why was the programme continued until 1987?  Indeed, as early as 1970 it was apparent that Singapore’s total fertility rate had reached a level which was the lowest regionally amongst its neighbours:

For the period 1965-1970, Singapore had the lowest fertility rate regionally at 3.5; the next highest rate was 5.6 (Indonesia).  Was there a need to depress it even further until 1987 when it fell to 1.42?  And as quoted above, the 1987 population policy was selective and targeted mostly the higher educated, which limited its efficacy and outreach. I cannot at present fathom if there is any good reason for the government to have persisted with their population control policy until 1987.  It appears to be unthinkable given that the government had still intended for Singapore’s growth to be export-led by the manufacturing sector which is labour dependent.  Did the government realise that by depressing population growth it is effectively stamping down its people, which it often claims is their only natural resource?  Or that doing so effectively created the problem of an ageing population, leaving fewer descendents to support an increasing number of elderly folks in the future?  So the next time someone tells you that Singapore has to import foreigners because of an ageing population, be mindful of whose policies led to that problem in the first place.

In the same year, 1987, David Evans of Newcastle University, Australia published a study which performed an expected Net Present Value (ENPV) analysis of preventing 1,000 births in Singapore.

The project assumed that an individual born would have to be dependent on government and private spending from year 1 to year 16, after which it joined the workforce and was able to contribute to the economy.  Assuming a project lifespan of 30 years,  it was discovered that the ENPV of preventing 1,000 births would be -S$2.68M (1987 dollars), a negative value which concluded that the general family planning programme (FPP) was not viable under growth rates of the early 1970s:

If growth continues at the average rate observed since the early 1970s, the analysis suggests that the returns to a general FPP do not justify the costs.

Under the model employed by Evans, Singapore would reap the benefits of preventing 1,000 birth up until the 16th year, when net benefits would then turn negative.  This suggests that the population control programme which Singapore practised from 1966 till 1987 sacrificed long term gains due to workforce contribution in return for short term benefits of cutting costs (of raising and nurturing the child) from the 1st to the 16th year of the individual’s lifespan. Such a short term policy consideration appears rather ill-thought in hindsight, and has likely contributed to the current shortage of labour prompting the government to import foreign workers to make up for the shortfall.

How about the post-1987 period? Did the government go to the other extreme, to try to reverse the lasting consequences of their anti-natalist policies?  The short answer is NO.  As late as 2001, the government was still unwilling to push for a general pro-natalist approach, like it had done for the anti-natalist one.  The Straits Times reported on March 10th, 2001 that an “accouchement fee” was still being imposed by the Health Ministry and administered by hospitals:

But Mr Lukman is not one to complain. The only thing that confounds him is why he has to pay a government “fine” levied on big families with four or more children.

A check shows that this little-known “fine” — called an “accouchement” fee (French for “delivery”) — comes under the purview of the Health Ministry and is administered by public hospitals here.

According to a Health Ministry spokesman, “it was one of the measures implemented under the New Population Policy in 1987, to reinforce the message that couples should have three or more children only if they can afford it”. It is tagged onto the hospital delivery bill and set lower administratively for the first three births — typically at about $400 — but escalates steeply to more than $1,000 for the fourth and subsequent births.

…

These big families bear the brunt of policies which date back to the Stop At Two era in the 1960s, when the national priority was to curb rather than coax procreation.

For example, they are not allowed to use Medisave to pay for maternity-ward charges for their fourth and subsequent babies. From the fifth child onwards, they are not entitled to childcare subsidies from the Ministry of Community Development and Sports. Paid maternity leave after Baby No 3 is out of the question, too.  They are also ineligible for Edusave grants, which can be used to pay for miscellaneous student fees and enrich-ment programmes, as Kreta Ayer-Tanglin GRC MP Lew Syn Pau pointed out in Parliament on Wednesday.

Edusave was finally changed in 2004 to include 4th and later children, some 17 years (!!) after the government first introduced pro-natalist policies:

However, only the first, second and third child were eligible for the Edusave account prior to 2004 and only students between the age of 6 and 16 prior to 2009 were eligible for the annual Edusave contributions.

Yet even today, the government still practices selective welfare schemes in half-heartedly encouraging pro-creation to improve the fertility rate.  For example, HOPE, an MCYS scheme explicitly states that married couples earning less than $1500 monthly must have no more than two children before they qualify for grants and bursaries:

Who is eligible for HOPE?

HOPE will target young families who are at risk of becoming the permanently poor. The eligibility criteria are:-

(a) Married couples with no more than 2 children.

(b) Either the husband or wife must be a Singapore citizen, and the spouse must either be a citizen or a Permanent Resident.

(c) The educational level of both husband and wife is 2 GCE ‘O’ level passes and below.

(d) Monthly household income of $1500 or below.

(e) Age of the mother is 35 years or below.

With initiatives like these and half-hearted attempts coupled with inexplicable strings attached to “encourage” couples to have more children, is it any wonder that the Singapore government has to resort to importing foreign labour en-masse to supplement the workforce?

Singapore ‘average wealth per adult’ owned by less than 20%

Blowin’ In The Wind (reproduced with permission)

 Posted: 10 Oct 2010 04:21 AM PDT

 The Global Wealth Report 2010 by Credit Suisse shows how misleading averages can be.

 Singaporeans are the fourth richest people in the world in terms of personal wealth and second richest in Asia-Pacific with an average wealth of US$336,000 per adult, reported the Straits Times, quoting the report. 

That’s a huge exaggeration.

 The Straits Times itself had the good grace to add the median wealth in Singapore is just US$30,092 per adult, according to the same report. In other words, half the adults in Singapore are worth over US$30,092.

 There are two things it did not mention, which you will find if you download the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report and the Credit Suisse Wealth Databook.

 The median wealth is higher in at least 25 countries. Here they are: Singapore is at the bottom of this table.

Look at the table again and you will notice something else: Singapore is the only country where the median wealth per adult is lower than the per capita GDP.

 According to the report, just over 20 per cent of the adult population in Singapore has over US$100,000 in financial and non-financial assets.

 So how many have over US$336,000, the so-called average wealth per adult?

 That’s not mentioned in the report.

 And the report is about the adult population in Singapore.

 It can’t be just about adult Singaporeans because the numbers don’t tally.

 The report puts the total number of adults in Singapore at 3,711,000.

 There are not that many adult Singaporeans, according to the Department of Statistics.

 According to it, Singapore’s total resident population of citizens and permanent residents, aged 15 and up, is 3,117,300. That includes 2,778,900 aged 15 to 64 and 338,400 aged over 64.

 Visit the Credit Suisse media site to download the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report and the Credit Suisse Wealth Databook.

 This chart shows the wealth distribution pattern in the 10 countries with the highest average wealth. More than 54 per cent of the adult population in Singapore is worth between US$10,000 and US$100,000.

  Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2010: Wealth distribution pattern

The report says:

 Household wealth in Singapore grew steadily and vigorously during the past decade, rising from USD 105,000 at the outset to more than USD 250,000 at the end. Most was due to domestic growth and asset price increases rather than favourable exchange rate movements. As a consequence, Singapore now ranks fourth in the world in terms of average personal wealth.

 Household assets are divided about equally into financial and real assets, in part reflecting strong government encouragement for both saving and home ownership. Average debts of USD 37,600 are relatively low, equalling just 13% of total assets.

 The distribution of wealth in Singapore shows relatively small numbers of people with wealth below USD 1,000, and about two and a half times the global average of those with wealth above USD 100,000. Considering its very high average wealth, the country’s representation at top wealth levels is lower than might be expected. The country’s 110,000 members form just 0.3% of the global top 1%, while its overall population is 0.1% of the world total. This contrasts with other wealthy countries where the share of the top 1% may be ten times the population share. Part of the explanation may lie with public ownership of a number of large enterprises.

Putting Singapore’s GDP in perspective

Furry Brown Dog 

Written by defennder

August 6, 2010 at 11:35 pm

On Wednesday 25 August 2010, 10:49 SGT  http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news

Flash floods along posh Orchard Road. Packed subway trains. Traffic gridlock in the morning and evening rush hours. Intensifying competition for public flats.

What happened to squeaky-clean, smooth-flowing Singapore?

Widely acclaimed as one of the world’s most “liveable” cities, Singapore is now experiencing urban growth woes as it moves to expand its population to 6.5 million in 20 years, up 30 percent from the current level of five million.

The target was first cited in 2007 as an optimal population size for long-term economic competitiveness, but strains are already beginning to show as more immigrants and guest workers jostle for space with the locals.

Not to mention an invasion of tourists, with arrivals surpassing the one million mark in a single month for the first time in July, thanks to two new massive casino resorts that opened a few months ago.

Singapore, one of the world’s richest cities, has a land area of just 710 square kilometres (274 square miles) but until recent years, it had avoided the congested feeling of places like Hong Kong and Tokyo.

“It’s crowded, very crowded,” commuter Anthony Chua, a 47-year-old accountant, said after getting off a train near the banking district.

Despite increased train frequency during peak demand periods, Chua felt trains were more cramped than before.

“There’s a certain level of frustration but I suppose we learn to accept it,” he added.

The government was left red-faced in June and July after an unprecedented three flash floods inundated houses, drowned cars and damaged shops, with insurers estimating 23 million Singapore dollars (17 million US) in claims.

The Public Utilities Board attributed the freak floods to regional squalls and clogged drainage, but questions remained over whether Singapore was equipped to handle the side effects of rapid urbanization.

The city-state’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, shocked many when he said occasional floods were inevitable in constantly rain-drenched Singapore because it could not afford to convert roads into canals.

Insurance companies subsequently said premiums might be raised in flood-prone areas including the shopping belt around Orchard Road.

But the floods formed just part of Singaporeans’ urban gripes.

Traffic has slowed amid an explosion in car ownership even though Singapore is one of the costliest places in the world to own a vehicle due to high taxes and quotas.

As of July, there were 936,311 vehicles plying the roads of Singapore, with cars accounting for 61.5 percent of the total, compared to 755,000 vehicles just five years ago.

The Land Transport Authority said daily journeys on private vehicles and public transport were expected to increase by 60 percent from the current 8.9 million to 14.3 million by 2020.

Demand for homes in Singapore’s public housing blocks, where 80 percent of the population reside, is also straining supply.

National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said there was an “imbalance” in supply and demand in July, with many first-time flat-buyers such as newlywed couples unable to find affordable homes.

Resale prices of four- and five-room flats, the most popular among Singaporeans, ranged from 331,500 to 682,500 Singapore dollars (243,190 to 500,773 US) in the second quarter.

Foreigners who enjoy permanent residency and are eligible to purchase public housing totalled 533,000 in 2009, a 37.8 percent increase from 2005.

Singapore’s total population numbered 4.99 million last year, a 17 percent increase from 2005, according to the latest government data.

Urban expert Seetharam Kallidaikurichi said Singaporeans should be prepared to pay more for public services if they expect the government to meet their expectations.

“It’s like you live in a five-star hotel. What happens? You just check in, you get your bed ready, new linen given to you, you come down, breakfast is served for you… (but) you pay for it,” said the professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority, the agency in charge of city planning, said it was devising new methods of maximising Singapore’s land space.

They include utilising underground space, building new commercial hubs away from the city centre and doubling the train network.

“As Singapore is a small city-state with limited land resources, the scarcity of land has been and will continue to be a challenge we face,” it said in reply to queries from AFP.

“The challenge of balancing growth with liveability is not an easy one, but we are confident that this can be done for Singapore.” it said.

Kallidaikurichi said Singapore was still leagues ahead of many other cities in terms of living conditions, and particularly praised the emphasis on greening the dense landscape.

“Many other cities including the big cities in the US and others, they have ended up as concrete jungles because they put so much roads and buildings and so on that they forgot about real life in terms of living,” he said.

http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/Model-city-Singapore-shows-afpsg-4043611794.html?x=0

Singapore faces recession risk in second half of 2010

SINGAPORE, Aug 10 — Singapore faces the risks of an annualised contraction in its economy in the second half of 2010 due to a global slowdown but remains on course to be one of the world’s fastest growing countries.

Top 100 Jobs In Singapore 2010

at Salary.sg – Your Salary in Singapore

This is the 2010 edition of our very popular list of 100 best-paying jobs in Singapore.

As with previous editions, this list is based on income data from the recently released MOM Report on Wages in Singapore 2009.

MOM uses actual CPF data, but only the base monthly wage data are published. This means bonuses and shared profits are excluded.

The following is the list of top 100 best-paying jobs (extracted from what are published by MOM). The wage numbers are the third-quartile monthly gross wages.

1. Managing director – $25,886
2. Foreign exchange dealer and broker – $17,434
3. General manager – $16,616
4. Company director – $15,570
5. Hydrographic surveyor – $12,100
6. Legal service manager – $11,417
7. Lawyer (except advocate and solicitor) – $11,050
8. General physician – $10,979
9. Business management consultant – $10,634
10. Commodities futures broker – $10,352
11. Training manager – $10,080
12. Information technology auditor – $9,800
13. Computer and information systems manager – $9,751
14. Operations manager (Finance) – $9,528
15. Business development manager – $9,489
16. Legal officer – $9,415
17. Risk management manager – $9,279
18. Corporate planning manager – $8,815
19. Engineering manager – $8,700
20. Marketing manager – $8,697
21. Personnel / Human resource manager – $8,650
22. Technical manager – $8,641
23. Budgeting and financial accounting manager – $8,600
24. Research and development manager – $8,576
25. Computer operations and network manager – $8,550
26. Marine superintendent (Deck) – $8,245
27. Quality assurance manager – $8,200
28. Creative director (Advertising) – $8,000
29. Sales manager – $7,960
30. Customer service manager – $7,957
31. Industrial health, safety and environment engineer – $7,945
32. Fund manager – $7,892
33. Chemical engineer (Petrochemicals) – $7,874
34. Advertising and public relations manager – $7,847
35. Manufacturing plant and production manager – $7,845
36. Treasury manager – $7,780
37. Logistics manager – $7,777
38. Shipping manager – $7,715
39. Chemical engineer (Petroleum) – $7,670
40. Structural engineer – $7,600
41. Building architect – $7,403
42. Advocate and solicitor – $7,400
43. Procurement manager – $7,358
44. Administration manager – $7,350
45. Property / Estate manager – $7,000
46. Producer (Stage, film, television and radio) – $6,924
47. Materials engineer – $6,815
48. Business analyst – $6,760
49. Biologist – $6,745
50. Industrial relations manager – $6,689
51. Operations manager – $6,648
52. Building and construction project manager – $6,600
53. Editor (Radio, television and video) – $6,592
54. Civil engineer – $6,558
55. Ship-master – $6,545
56. Instrumentation engineer – $6,538
57. Medical scientist – $6,531
58. Premises maintenance manager – $6,503
59. Flight operations officer – $6,403
60. Transport operations manager – $6,355
61. Audio and video equipment engineer – $6,250
62. Chemical engineering technician (Petrochemicals) – $6,206
63. Computer engineer – $6,006
64. Finance sales associate professional – $5,944
65. Information technology security specialist – $5,939
66. Biomedical engineer – $5,892
67. Aeronautical engineer – $5,873
68. Biochemist – $5,865
69. Sales representative (Technical) – $5,788
70. Financial analyst – $5,670
71. Telecommunications engineer – $5,630
72. Automotive engineer – $5,625
73. Industrial machinery and tools engineer – $5,532
74. Warehousing manager – $5,500
75. Food and drink technologist – $5,436
76. Soil mechanic and piling engineer – $5,427
77. Network systems and data communication analyst – $5,425
78. Database administrator – $5,375
79. Application programmer – $5,328
80. Marine engineer – $5,250
81. Credit analyst – $5,240
82. Chemical engineer – $5,194
83. Chief / executive cook – $5,192
84. Production engineer – $5,163
85. School counsellor – $5,161
86. Sales representative (Medical and pharmaceutical products) – $5,150
87. Building construction engineer – $5,125
88. Lift engineer – $5,100
89. Manufacturing engineer – $5,092
90. QC engineer – $5,037
91. Market research analyst – $5,000
92. Semi-conductor engineer – $5,000
93. Systems designer and analyst – $5,000
94. Electronics engineer – $4,990
95. Electronics and electrical engineer – $4,965
96. Automation engineer – $4,916
97. Systems programmer – $4,907
98. Software engineer – $4,900
99. Specialised nurse – $4,893
100. Surveyor – $4,882

Compare this with our 100 Best Jobs List 2009.

 By EMILYN YAP

 A large number of workers are ready to switch jobs for better pay – and companies that do not start to address employees’ concerns could risk losing talent.

 These are some of the key findings from two surveys conducted by recruitment firm Robert Half and the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore (ICPAS) between March and April this year.

 The Asia-Pacific Banking & Financial Services Salary (FS) Guide polled 906 professionals from Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia, while the Asia-Pacific Finance & Accounting Salary (FA) Guide polled 2,599 professionals from the four markets and New Zealand.

 With the economy picking up, a fair number of respondents from Singapore – 52 per cent in the FS survey and 43 per cent in the FA survey – said that their remuneration increased in the past 12 months.

 These figures are higher than those across the region. Forty-six per cent of all participants in the FS survey and 38 per cent in the FA survey reported higher remuneration.

 ‘Companies in Singapore have actually embraced the need to raise salaries ahead of competitive markets,’ said Robert Half Singapore director Tim Hird. They have also given some of the largest salary increases, he said.

 Most respondents in Singapore also bagged bonuses last year – and are confident of getting them again this year.

 Despite positive developments, there is still a significant gap in pay expectations between employees and their companies. In Singapore, 46 per cent of FS survey participants and 40 per cent of FA survey participants said that they do not feel that their salary packages are fair.

 ICPAS president Ernest Kan suggested that many respondents could have lost about a year of increments during the financial crisis, and recent pay raises may not have made up for those losses, giving rise to dissatisfaction.

 Despite their unhappiness, respondents in Singapore are the least likely to discuss pay with employers. A majority – 79 per cent in the FS poll and 72 per cent in the FA poll – said that they see changing jobs as a way to gain bargaining power in salary negotiations.

 ‘There’s a communication gap,’ Mr Hird said. ‘As the markets continue to improve, leaders within companies are going to be really challenged in terms of engaging their staff and understanding what their expectations of salary levels are.’

 And it will be crucial for companies to do this to retain talent as labour demand strengthens, particularly from banks.

1. Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister, Singapore

Annual salary: $2.75 million

The highest-paid politician by a staggering margin, Lee Hsien Loong has often defended his extravagant salary. In a recent U.S. trip, Loong highlighted how American politicians, because of their low annual salaries, may have other interests — future pursuits, perhaps — that could distract them from their public service. “Our attitude is: you must pay for the quality of the person you want,” he said of his high earnings. “You want the best person and you want him to be properly motivated.” Still, rhetoric aside, there are many who justly suggest Loong’s annual income is far too high for governing Singapore, a tiny nation of less than five million people. The P.M.’s salary of $2.75 million per year is more than 80 times that of the average Singaporean family.

2. Donald Tsang, Chief Executive, Hong Kong

Annual salary: $515,300

To Tsang’s credit, the well-compensated chief executive has been a loyal employee of the civil service. Hong Kong’s head of government has maintained a public job since 1967, working his way up through posts in the finance and trade sectors. And while Hong Kong’s civil servants are traditionally well paid — a strategy that aims to attract “capable and enthusiastic candidates” to public work, as Tsang himself once pointed out — never has Tsang earned more than with his current post, held since 2005. The 65-year-old’s salary is more than 21 times what the median household earns per year in Hong Kong, where an average family takes home just $24,000 annually.

3. Barack Obama, President, United States

Annual salary: $400,000

The salary of Barack Obama, despite making him the third-highest earning public figure on the planet, seems positively miniscule when you consider the bloated Wall Street bonuses the President has had to police during the early months of his presidency. Yet $400,000 is a lot, especially when compared to the average U.S. household income — just over $50,000 when last measured in 2007. Obama, as did other presidents, does earn outside income while in office (his millions made from best-selling books were mentioned in this feature’s intro) but his most lucrative years may be to come. Like Tony Blair, the ex-British P.M., many former U.S. presidents earn much more than their in-office salaries after their terms finish. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, for example, each make as much as $150,000 for speaking engagements around the world.

4. Brian Cowen, Taoiseach, Ireland

Annual salary: $342,400

Ireland’s Taoiseach, the country’s head of government, is the highest-paid politician in all of Europe. And while Brian Cowen has only held office since 2008, his salary has already become a lightning rod in Irish politics. During his first year as Taoiseach, Cowen denounced business leaders taking huge pay increases during the outset of the country’s financial meltdown. It was then, of course, that Cowen became eligible for a $50,600 per year raise of his own — a pay hike he took in stride. The Taoiseach’s opposition fumed over the fact that Cowen earns more than seven times what the average Irish family does per year.

5. Nicolas Sarkozy, President, France

Annual salary: $319,800

Unlike in other governments where top-ranking officials earn similar salaries, France awards its top-brass with incomes that far exceed other public figures. Sarkozy, who has been France’s president since 2007, and his Prime Minister, François Fillon, both earn 50 per cent more than the next highest-compensated member of the French government. Yet the French president’s salary — which still towers over the average national household income of $58,000 per year — wasn’t always so high. As recently as 2007, the first year of his presidency, Sarkozy earned a paltry-by-comparison annual income of $135,200.

6. Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister, Australia

Annual salary: $315,800

Rudd and the rest of the federal government have been recent beneficiaries of a three per cent raise — an increase that bumps the Aussie P.M.’s salary up by almost $10,000 every year until 2011. A Senate leader actually called for Rudd’s salary to be tripled to $1 million, but the everyman Prime Minister sheepishly declined. In fact, Rudd’s three per cent raise was a long time coming. After he took office in 2007, the newly-minted Aussie leader froze his own salary and then deferred a similar increase the next year. The P.M. remains committed, he maintains, to improving the quality of life for all people in Australia, where the average annual household income totals just over $60,000.

7. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister, Canada

Annual salary: $309,800

Canadians are world class when it comes to grieving about taxes. And who could blame us? Last year, according to the Fraser Institute, the average Canadian family lost 42 per cent of their household income to taxes. Because of this, the ire of the Canuck taxpayer always falls on figures with public salaries, and no such official earns more in Canada than Harper. Wherever you stand on the P.M.’s annual salary — is it too much, or too little? — the Conservative leader earns a wide margin more than the average Canadian. As of the last census, full-time Canadian workers made an average of only $41,401 each year.

Read more here: World’s highest paid politicians