OPINION: Rebutting Finance Minister Tharman on world most expensive city ranking

Yours Truly Singapore, 7 Mar 2014
Mr Tharman then claimed that few surveys measure living costs of ordinary residents and went on to cite the one from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy as the one that does. But the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy survey is quite a useless survey because it is almost never used by anyone outside Singapore. It is almost like North Korean statistics useful only within North Korea.
I refer too to the 6 Mar 2014 Straits Times report “S’pore the costliest city? That’s rich” [4]. In that report, Straits Times claimed that the EIU study included fees at international schools as part of overall cost of living. However, the EIU website [2] says: the final three subcategories of:
• Housing rents
• International schools, health & sports
• Business trip costs
are not included in the index calculation. Hence, Straits Times is wrong to say that international school fees are included as part of overall cost of living since it is excluded from the index calculation.  Full story

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DPM THARMAN: EIU'S RECENT COST OF LIVING REPORT DOESN'T APPLY TO LOCALS - The Real Singapore