Interesting article in WSJ:

Hong Kong Ranked Sixth Most Expensive City in Asia.

This part in particular about Singapore’s rising cost of living was illuminating:

Singapore, on the other hand, inched up right behind Hong Kong, ranking No. 8 in Asia and No. 42 world-wide. Hong Kong’s cost-of-living difference was 15% higher than Singapore’s in 2008; in 2010, the difference is 2%.

You don’t see a lot of reliable economic data in many Asian countries, such as CPI, employment etc. The numbers quoted in the Wall Street Journal seem on target to me. I didn’t notice a big change in prices in Hong Kong when I was there last month but I did notice major trend in rising prices across the board in Singapore throughout 2008-2010. I’ve also heard complaints from Singaporeans on how things are getting more expensive, crowded and foreign..

Tags: asia, cost of living, cpi, economic data, expensive, Hong Kong, ranking, singapore, trends, Wall Street Journal

Update: I’ve been using the Ascaso i-Mini 2 coffee grinder for 2 weeks now and I absolutely love it! I’m now on an obsessive quest for the Perfect Coffee. And this relatively inexpensive home grinder has been one of the best investments I’ve made towards a perfect espresso. The consistency of the grind, the ease of filling up the portafilter and gorgeous smell of coffee in the morning (and afternoon, and evening lol) right after grinding. Fantastic.

Had a great weekend in Singapore catching up with all my friends. Now that almost all of them have moved back to Singapore we can meet more often.

Anyways in between the excellent pubs, restaurants, discussions on the meaning of the life the universe and the markets, champagne brunch, cigar bar, back alley roti prata joint, football finals etc. I managed to squeeze in a bit of shopping and picked up this little beauty:

I paid $270 for the I2 Mini Steel version (conical burrs and doserless) which is quite reasonable compared to the US price of $249. In Thailand it costs almost double that.

Had my first shot using it this evening. Marvelous. You can read more about it at the home barista forum which has some good reviews, comparisons and user experiences such as this one.

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Tags: ascaso, Ascaso mini, barista, beans, coffee, coffee grinder Singapore, espresso, home coffee grinder, iMini, Perfect, portafilter, shopping, singapore, thailand

I read some interesting statistics today at the local Straits Times newspaper over at my favourite sandwich place. They were showing some stats on foreigners and population growth. Apparently Singapore now reached a new all time high in terms of:

Overall population: 4.5M
Total Population growth rate: 3.3%
Number of foreigners: 875,000
Foreigners growth rate: 9.7%
Locals growth rate: 1.9%

This isn’t really surprising given the impressive economic expansion this year which is expected to be 7.5%-8%. For a relatively mature economy such as this one the impact is felt across the board. It explains the hike in property prices and rent. Rent has increased here by about 20-30% since 2004. Around 2002 and 2003 the number of foreigners here dropped by about 3 and 5.7% respectively while in 2004 the foreigners growth rate was flat. I was here in 2004, the growth rate was flat because there were no foreigners left to leave the place :-)

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Tags: foreigners, locals, newspaper, number of iphone users in singapore, population, sg, singapore, statistics, straits times