50,000 jobs in Singapore will be lost by June 2009

[Blaze]

I agree, the casino will be struggling for sure in the beginning. I had a trip to Macau recently and I was quite surprised how convenient casino town it is. It has a lovely European laid-back feeling which means drinking and smoking is not so restricted and it's much cheaper.

Why would anyone come to Singapore and gamble? It's super expensive, the hotels rates are super greedy (even STB shares this opinion) and those new anti-smoking laws might turn off crowds. And in the bad economy, people tend to choose less expensive destinations.

The first IR will have a 'soft launch' before next Christmas. This will probably mean one hotel and one casino. It will not solve any unemployment problems in SG.

[Even...]

The first IR will have a 'soft launch' before next Christmas. This will probably mean one hotel and one casino. It will not solve any unemployment problems in SG.

Also have to consider Sands are actually sending people from Macau TO the IR to work, as they scale back in Macau.

The Chinese government just cut the amount of Mainlanders allowed into Macau at the wrong time.....it's not so much the number of people but the number of times one is allowed to visit, so vastly cutting tourist numbers.

It could be some of those tourists that would have gone back to Macau but that are no longer allowed, may come to Singapore......but mostl likely Malaysia.

[and more]

when the tourists stop coming ..

Tourists find S'pore pricey

Fri, Jan 02, 2009
my paper

With the economic crisis biting, tourist arrivals in November fell 9.7%, compared to the same period in 2007, the sixth drop in a row.

my paper spoke to 10 tourists leaving Singapore at Changi Airport to find out what improvements they would like to see.

The only significant gripe, cited by four out of 10, was that Singapore is "expensive" when compared to other popular destinations. However, they praised service and efficiency levels here.

Some locations the visitors felt are cheaper include Taipei, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

An Australian, who wished to be known only as Emily, said: "The food here is expensive. From the littlest things like soft drinks to a pot of tea in a cafe." She had spent five days here.

She was charged $9 for a pot of tea at a cafe. The same order would have cost about A$5 (S$5.05) in Australia, she said.

Ms Kelly Zhang from Shanghai also spent five days in Singapore. She told my paper: "The service here is quite good. But things are expensive for my budget, which affects the enjoyment of shopping.

"Luxury items like jewellery are expensive, compared to Shanghai. Even handbags that are not made of leather, like a Fion bag I saw, are pricey."

Echoing her view is Madam Du Ming Mei, a Taiwanese based in Shanghai. She was here for five days with her family and found Singapore "too costly". Meals, taxis and goods in retail malls all came at high prices. Madam Du and her husband, Mr Pan Jian Hua, felt that Singapore is "more costly than Hong Kong and Taipei".

Madam Du had another gripe: at a food court in town, she found the hygiene wanting.

She said with a grimace: "The stallholders wiped the tabletops with a dirty-looking cloth. And the trays were oily."

[The abyss]

SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--Singapore plunged deeper into recession in the fourth quarter as gross domestic product marked its biggest quarterly decline on record, the government said Friday, lowering its projection for 2009.
The darker outlook for the small, trade-dependent economy - considered to be a bellwether for the rest of the region - likely means the government will step up spending to offset a slowdown in manufacturing and a rapid cooling in the construction and services sectors. It may also put pressure on the central bank to ease monetary policy to support growth.
The economy contracted at a seasonally-adjusted, annualized pace of 12.5% in October-December, accelerating from a 5.4% decline in the third quarter,  according to the Ministry of Trade and Industry's advance estimate. It was the biggest contraction in GDP since the government began publishing seasonally-adjusted data in 1976.
"The global economic crisis has worsened since November, with sharp declines in global demand, trade and investments," the ministry said in a statement.
The government cut its forecast for 2009, projecting a range of between a contraction of 2% and growth of 1% for the economy, against its estimate in November of a range of between a contraction of 1% and growth of 2%.
Citigroup economist Kit Wei Zheng is more pessimistic. He forecasts GDP will contract 2.8% this year. That would make the current downturn worse than the slump in 1998, when the economy shrank 1.4% as it was buffeted by the Asian financial crisis, and as well as the 2001 recession following the collapse of U.S. technology stocks, when GDP shrank 2.4%, he said.
"If we are correct, 2009 will mark the most severe recession in Singapore's history," he said.
Inflationary pressures are likely to moderate "more substantially," he said, predicting Singapore could even experience a brief period of deflation in 2009.
Singapore's economy, especially the electronics sector, relies heavily on overseas demand, which has imploded in the wake of the global credit crisis that swept the globe last year. The manufacturing and financial sectors have been the hardest hit, while the tourism services sector is also seeing signs of cooling.
"The data puts additional pressure on the Monetary Authority of Singapore to ease its policy further," said Selena Ling, economist with OCBC Bank.