The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released its global cost of living rankings for 2022 on November 30, with New York and Singapore together topping as the world's most expensive cities.
This is the eighth time in 10 years that Singapore topped the list.
The survey was conducted in August and September of this year, compared more than 400 individual prices for more than 200 products and services in 172 cities around the world.
The cost of living in 172 major cities around the world has soared by an average of 8.1% over the past year, driven by factors such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
I am not surprised that Singapore topping the list for the 8th time. I can feel the rising living cost in Singapore.
Singapore's living cost has been increasing, it is because Singapore is a small country surrounded by sea with no natural resources, no plantation or large scale farm to be able to produce enough food to feed all the people.
Therefore, alot of our basic essentials like water, natural gas, food and fuel are mostly imported.
Imported water from Johor, Malaysia satisfies about 50 percent of the demand,
About 95% of Singapore's electricity is generated using imported natural gas. This means that energy developments around the world will naturally have an impact on Singapore’s electricity prices, hence higher fuel prices globally will push up domestic electricity prices.
We have only a few farms that produce fresh leafy vegetables, fish and eggs. Due to limited land space, some local farmers are using alternative places such as HDB carpark rooftops to grow food. Many local farms are also tapping into technology and employing sustainable farming practices to ramp up production and improve the quality of produce. These will also increase the cost to produce food.
The world is increasingly threatened by climate change, the global warming and adverse weather around the world is causing the decrease in food supply and therefore driving up the food prices.
The supply chain disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine is also greatly affecting the food and oil prices.
Based on the above, we can see that the prices of most things are basically affected by water, electricity and fuel. It will subsequently affect transportation cost, refrigeration cost, cooking cost, manpower cost, rental cost, etc. We cannot control all of these external factors, but we can find ways to spend wisely to reduce costs.
For example, buy essential items only when there is special offer by supermarket, take free MRT rides to the city area if tap out of 18 designated stations before 7.45am on weekdays, eat at hawker centre/eat home cooked food, buy discounted bread or sushi after 8pm, save rain water or water from washing machine to flush toilet, etc
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