TR EMERITUS

作者：Patrick Barta / P.R. Venkat《华尔街日报》2010年 02月 23日 新加坡出台了限制移民的新措施，努力缓和这个争议最大的新政治问题之一。 新加坡这个富裕的东南亚城市国家多年来一直允许引入大量外籍工人来增加本国人口数量，以保持其相对中国等拥有更多廉价劳动力的国家的竞争力。不过新加坡公民对这一政策越来越不满，他们说这个政策导致过度拥挤、打压了当地工资水平。经济学家们则认为，对外籍工人的过度依赖还令生产力水平低下，威胁到新加坡未来的增长。 新加坡政府对这些担忧作出回应，周一在年度预算报告中说，政府将从7月份开始，分阶段提高对外籍工人的征税。到2012 年前，预计制造业和服务业的雇主在每个工人身上要缴纳的税费约增加100新加坡元（合71美元），而对建筑工人的征税可能会更高。政府还将引入一些会导致赋税更高的额外调整措施。 尽管税费的绝对值相对较小，但分析人士说，这样的成本已经足以让一些雇主不去雇佣低技能的海外工人，特别是制造业等行业中员工数量庞大、利润率极低的企业。 不过，不清楚这些措施是否能安抚那些感觉政府没有采取有力行动以避免新加坡外籍人口过快增长的新加坡公民。2005年至2009年，新加坡人口增至500万人，每年激增约15万人，是新加坡人口增速最快的时期之一，新增人口中有75%甚至更多为外籍人口。 来源：http://chinese.wsj.com  Read More →

By Regina Leung from South China Morning Post The main political parties in Hong Kong said on Wednesday the latest budget measures proposed by Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah would not help ordinary people - particularly low-income earners.Democratic Party Chairman said the budget was too fiscally conservative. “The government has a huge budget surplus, but the difficulties faced by underprivileged people will still remain,” he said. He said the party was disappointed with the budget and urged the government to introduce more measures to help the poor. Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) chairman Tam Yiu-chung said his party welcomed the new relief measures. However, he said the pace in which some measures had been introduced had been too slow. An example of this was providing transport allowances to encourage people to find jobs, he said. Hong Kong Liberal Party vice chairwoman Miriam Lau Kin-yee praised the major focus of the budget. She said measures to reduce salaries tax, increase supply of land and residential flats would help young people to purchase property. However, she said some of the new measures would not be effective in “cooling down” the property market. Audrey Eu Yuet-mee, leader of the Civic Party, said the government should build more public housing flats, resume construction of Home Ownership Scheme flats and crackdown on unscrupulous sales practices by developers. “By merely revitalising the secondary market of HOS flats and liaising with the MTR Corporation and Urban Renewal Authority will not be sufficient to stabilise the property market in the long-term,” she said. DAB lawmaker Chan Kam-lam also said the government should resume sales of HOS flats. In other comments, Sze Wing-ching, chairman of Centaline Properties suggested the government should increase the supply of residential land use over the next few years. Sze also suggested new residential flats should only sold to locals, instead of people from overseas. “Property prices have surged because they are being pushed up by overseas buyers,” he explained. The Certified Public Accountants (CPA) of Australia Hong Kong said the budget had good and bad aspects. “We applaud the government’s decision to increase stamp duty on transactions of properties valued at more than HK$20million from 3.75 per cent to 4.25 per cent. “However, we had hoped there would be an extension of the current home loan interest deduction period from 10 to 20 years and an increase of the cap from HK$100,000 to HK$250,000,” the spokesman said. - South China Morning Post  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent Contrary to what was said by the PAP MPs and reported in the state media, the majority of Singaporeans are disappointed and unhappy with the 2010 Singapore Budget unveiled lately by Finance Minister Tharman. The PAP MPs have been singing praises of it in unison while the Singapore media has been focusing on the hike in foreign worker levy to placate Singaporeans angry with the ruling party's pro-foreigner policy. In an open forum conducted by Yahoo which has attracted more than 200 comments so far, many Singaporeans posted their frank views on the Budget. Don wrote: "Kind of disappointed. Was looking for more incentives to promote Singaporeans to have more babies given the recent talk about the need to increase the birthrate.. benefits provided to families will hardly scratch the cost of bringing up a child.. Also, hope the foreign worker levy will not apply to maids... if not that is another hit to potential parents who is considering getting some help around the house after childbirth.." Nat added: "Why am I not surprised that there is a deficit in the budget report? Because it was for 2009! If I did not remember incorrectly, that was also the year of the economic crisis, and the poor investment decisions of many in Senior Management of Government and Quasi Government who lost much of our monies....It seems those who are running government nowadays has nothing better to do than tweeking things whenvever they feel bored - just to make it look like these officials are doing something useful.I can only say that Singapore instead of getting better, Singapore is deteriorating...what a sad state of affairs it is for those of our generation who have worked so hard to make Singapore what it was today, and then to be slowly but gradually destroyed..." cskp felt the foreigner issue was not dealt with adequately: "From my understanding of the budget speech , the problem of foreign workers are not fully dealt with and is too general . In my opinion , it should address the foreign worker situation into two broad categories . One group being the construction and service industries and the second group are the professionals, managerial and executives . I belong to the second group . I returned to Singapore after 8 years working in China and after one year with the same company , I was retrenched . There are 3 other foreigners in the same team and the company chose to retrench the local , given all of us have the same set of skills to perform the job. There are several factors , one being office politics , too many foreigners within the same team , protecting their own interests . Having a boss who is also a foreigner didn't help. What I'm trying to relate here is we have too many foreigners across all sectors and there is no level-playing field when your bosses and your other team members are all foreigners , discriminating Singaporeans in their own backyard." Maddie L is now afraid of taking "incentives" from the ruling party: "I m disappointed. Nothing much was addressed on the higher and ever increasing costs of living, I m afraid of taking incentives from gov, because in the past it shows how they give you one dollar and take back 10dollars from you. LIke the SP services increasing constantly despite it uses natural gas and transport, ERP and housing keep getting more costly. Plus this increasing productivity to me is like asking you to work hard and longer and we all know that it takes forever for our pay to be increased by bosses." The chorus of discontent expressed by Singaporeans is an indication that the ruling party is fast losing the support and confidence of the people to run the country. Despite its frequent trumpeting of its "achievements", many Singaporeans can attest to the fact that life has not improved for them. In fact, it has become more stressful to live in Singapore due to a combination of stagnant wages, rising cost of living and increased competition with foreigners. The ruling party has screwed up its immigration policies big time by importing too many (unsuitable) foreigners into Singapore within too short a period of time without putting up a comprehensive social safety net for Singaporeans. As Wacko puts it succinctly: "Let's sum up all. I bet the govt vote% will be lower than the last election 66%. You get what it mean??" The ruling party is likely to win less votes in the next election and if the opposition is able to work together and field credible candidates, it may even lose its traditional two-thirds majority in Parliament.  Read More →