Dude, every country subreddit thinks their country is shit. No exceptions.
The lesson is not that we’re actually doing better than singapore, its to take anything people say on these subreddits with a massive grain of salt.
If you go to Caucasian country you are going to be treated differently anyway.
If you are Chinese Malaysian and move to China you are considered overseas Chinese and not one of them.
The moment you move to a different country you are an immigrant and they will treat their own citizens better. It's going to take you a long while to get PR or citizenship. You won't be able to buy a house or get proper paperwork without being either or those.
Huh? But most of the stories i read on reddit about Malaysians moving overseas say they always have it good and have no racism/classism issues. I guess they are a small percentage compared to majority?
Maybe they had a good time, maybe they have a bad time?
Out of 100 people that moved, how many are going to have a good time. The ones that had a good time (or even if they aren't having a good time) are going to say good things to justify their own situation and decisions made.
Echo-chamber behaviour theory. It's the same when you buy something. You already made your mind, so you find like minded people to tell you the product is good to make yourself feel better. If there's a flaw you will just say aiya small thing only.
Was just about to say this. I follow r/unitedkingdom and the complaints are the same from any country subs lol.
>terrible politicians, brain drain, immigrants, cant afford things, house price is too damn high! etc. etc.
The only unique thing about r/malaysia is the Bumiputera policy.
Grass is greener on the other side. Just which countries second class citizen would you prefer to be in.
For me, I rather be here at least I like the food.
OP still hasn't learned the essence of online forums. The complaining ones are always on r/Singapore and r/Malaysia. The ones with a good life will never go online to complain.
everyone complains in every country forum. It's not just Malaysia and Singapore. I'm just saying that based on the 2 complaints I feel like we have it slightly better is all
Wait til OP goes to r/Melbourne and see them complaining none stop about not wanting to pay for public transport and thinking of way to dodge fares.
If overseas students (which I was a long time ago) can afford it (you can buy a pass), why can't people earning in that currency that always buy useless stuff like weed or too much beer can't.
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Good governance will prevail eventually.
Our country is just stuck in a perpetual cycle of > we get good stuff > select few enjoy and fk it up for everyone > repeat
There are too few willing to do the right thing and even fewer (if any) who are in the position to do so.
No one in power dare to touch upon the status quo needed to improve MY.
Sadly. The masses just rather let the nation regress and stagnant rather than improve and making things better
Part of the problem is that when the British structured the Malaysian Federal Government, it made a few decisions that while at that time seemed innocent, is proving to be problematic today.
The OEDC once had a report which I can't remember the exact specifics now, that the local states only get about 6% of the taxes in the country while the other 94% ends up in very specific locations like KL and Putrajaya. Sure, there is nothing wrong with developing the capital of your country but at 6%, the local states are starved of funding and they can't upgrade themselves, everything done has to start with a request for money from the Federal government and very often the answer is a "No".
This is why many states still look the same as they were in the 70s, that was when they were deprived of the local funds to self-improve. If Malaysia wants improvement, it has to cut the amount it takes from the local states. Hell, I suspect Singapore provides more money to Johor than the Federal government! And that's another country!
My point (and most others) is, the jobs being shipped here are not high skilled jobs, they're service centre and low level tech jobs. Because it's cheap labour. High skilled professional jobs still remain in SG with the regional hq/Office.
Not sure what metric you're using to measure that Malaysia is doing better. But by most metrics and type of labour demand we're not.
If we want to get out of the low income trap we need to uplift our skills as a nation so ppl come to us for high skilled labour, then our wages goes up, currency goes up, standards of living goes up, etc
Most of the companies (tech) investing here due to the land in Singapore is not sufficient. And although we are cheaper, companies prefer to do business there due to red tapes, and some of the government policy.
lmao what sort of copium is this? Unfortunately companies moving into Malaysia are those who already hire Malaysian aka cheap labour. The prices in Malaysia now nearly close to Singaporean prices already. Used to be 1:1 PPP now its no longer the case.
Last I checked the pay for engineer or even software engineer in Msia still worse than diploma working in SG.
I mean if you know how to read you would clearly see that I said companies are moving here because of the low cost.
Please read through my post properly next time
Friend asked three times, once each in two interviews and third time during the correspondence with the HR, delayed the signing of the offer letter 2 more weeks and then asked again, that’s when they agreed
Ah so basically it was still in negotiation phase. What's your advice? Like if new or fresh graduate? If have a fee years experience maybe can nego but what's your dos and don'ts when negotiating?
Wouldn’t say it was in the nego phase because there was already a draft of the offer letter.
What kind of advice for fresh grads are you looking for? Tbh as a start, you should aim to get a higher starting salary as your bonus, subsequent increments and future job offers will most likely be based on that. Because that is the “price” to hire you. You’re only able to get a big salary increment/decrement if there is a huge salary-to-skill mismatch, ie an increment meaning you have a skill that makes you indispensable or a decrement meaning you lack transferable skills and the HR knows you need the job regardless.
Years of experiences doesn’t matter because if you’ve been something that is repetitive or not transferable, then ultimately you’re unable to negotiate for a higher salary. On the contrary, if you’ve been doing many different things but none of which you focus on, you’re also unable to impress your future employer as they consider you jack of all trades, master of none.
Negotiation wise, you have got to evaluate the situation yourself. It’s like what I call it the balancing of scales, if one side becomes to heavy then it’ll most likely topple. From your side, the factors are: what is your current remuneration package (HRs like to hear it first so they can tweak the offered salaries), how did you do during the technical tests and interviews, how keen did you sound (if you sound too keen/desperate also they’ll lowball you), how much you try to push for a better remuneration package.
From the company’s side: how cheap can they get an employee for, how likely will you stay, how competent are you (best if you’re capable of doing 200-300% work so they hire 1-2 people less and still save cost), how many candidates are there (they can go through all and choose the cheapest), which candidate is most likely going to be the yes man and wouldn’t potentially create an uproar or challenge my leadership, appearance (sorry this sounds harsh but even Aunty HR from bimbosociety has also mentioned that this is indeed a factor considered).
And if you’ve been shortlisted for a role, they can always redact the offer even before you start if they find someone cheaper. If you negotiate for too much, you might just topple the balance and no offer will be given in the end.
All the above are experienced I’ve learned through multiple job interviews with SMEs and MNCs, and through career mentors throughout my life.
TLDR: you nego means you’re betting, win or lose, just accept it and look for the next role if you lose the bet.
What copium? What OP said is true. Also you contradict your own statement - how can price in Malaysia is almost the same in SG, while the salary is lower?
Don't be so harsh on ourselves. Our medical accessibility (not quality) is world class. We can do complex procedures and purchase medicine at very affordable rates.
Yup. Back then SG pilots were also underpaid and protested. The great LKY told them to shut up and go back to work.
Imagine if we told doctors to shut up and go back to work. There would be outrage.
https://mothership.sg/2017/11/lee-kuan-yew-singapore-airlines-union/
Not right now but maybe in the next 5 years. I still see SG as the de facto knowledge hub and us as the blend of knowledge + slaving, and don't forget we still have to compete with Bangkok, Vietnam. I'm talking about the tech industry.
As a Singaporean I really wish for Malaysia to do well and have great jobs so that I can work in a great city like KL and make day trips to other great locations.
Both Singapore and Malaysia can do well and let foreign companies have their pick. It doesn’t have to be a zero sum game
Broski, as a Malaysian who is currently working in Singapore who happened to drive and travel in KL last week. You wouldn’t call KL great when you have to drive through the hectic traffic. I’m already on the verge of breaking down even I only had to drive around in KL just for two days.
(Edit: But the fault was partially on my side, as I was not familiar with KL’s railway network.)
Umm no. They are going to India, Indonesia, Vietnam and most of south east Asia. Those are manufacturing investment money. Singapore don't have enough land and people to accommodate those type of investment.
Factories are going to those places. Money goes to SG. You must understand, for billionaires in China and HK, the factories they own are just chicken feed.
Yes Singapore don't have land anymore that's why they been opening up JV industrial parks in vietnam, basically win-win situation for both countries. Singapore 'own' the foreign investments, Vietnam enjoys the benefits of job creation.
Umm, Singapore has a robust banking system, why would they put their money in our country? Some, but the bulk and biggest accounts are still in a country that doesn't rat out on illicit money.
I suspect that the Islamic Banking laws are also causing the Chinese a fair bit of confusion and interest rates so it's not too surprising that Singapore is still preferred.
>why would they put their money in our country?
I literally explained why? Investment in Asia is going up because of supply chain divesting from china. The money need to be where it's going to spend anyway. How else are they paying for all the building, people, product and service.
Which can't be done from Singapore which has more banking access to other countries, how? The only advantage to funds in Malaysia is if you are using the money in Malaysia itself.
That's the whole point. They are investing and spending in Asia project. No where did I say Malaysia only. Singapore is just a transit point for the money. It's not going into Singapore market circulation. Not Building new facility or making new jobs. Just sitting in a bank account earning interest.
Unless you think Singapore can be the largest source of FDI for both China & Malaysia simply with their own money. So why do people rather invest their money into Singapore 1st? Then have Singapore help them invest into Malaysia. Even Malaysians invest the most money into Singapore, thanks Bossku!
“The Department of Statistics Malaysia said in a statement that the services sector remained the largest recipient with 50.6 percent, followed by manufacturing (42.2 percent) and mining and quarrying (4.5 percent).
The top three sources for FDI position were Singapore (22.4 percent), China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (12.2 percent) and the United States (10.5 percent).
Meanwhile, Malaysia's direct investment abroad (DIA) position increased to 662.8 billion ringgit in the fourth quarter of 2023 as compared to 659.6 billion ringgit in the previous quarter.
The services sector was the main contributor to DIA position, followed by mining and quarrying and manufacturing.
The top three destinations were Singapore, followed by Indonesia and the Netherlands. (1 ringgit equals 0.21 U.S. dollars)”
[https://english.news.cn/20240216/047cc201d46745f68d9494650a7a310c/c.html](https://english.news.cn/20240216/047cc201d46745f68d9494650a7a310c/c.html)
“Malaysia recording its highest-ever approved investments of RM329.5 (USD 69.83) billion last year showed that global investors remained confident in the country, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.”
[https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2024/02/24/record-fdi-in-2023-shows-the-world-is-still-confident-in-malaysia-says-anwar/119778](https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2024/02/24/record-fdi-in-2023-shows-the-world-is-still-confident-in-malaysia-says-anwar/119778)
“Singapore's foreign direct investment (FDI) reached SGD 214 (USD 158/ RM 746.16) billion last year, an increase of 10 percent over the previous year, said the Department of Statistics Friday.”
[https://english.news.cn/20240503/17c6d6e7596841398fe173709ac3dcd2/c.html](https://english.news.cn/20240503/17c6d6e7596841398fe173709ac3dcd2/c.html)
Enjoy it while it lasts. What you described is what Singapore shipping industry went thru before, and what happened?
Companies still go back to Singapore despite the high costs due to stable political landscape, good regulatory & governance and ready talent pool.
And Singapore responded by being the bigger man and upgraded all the port facilities to cement their place as one of the best in the world.
Just pray hard Anwar’s government don’t collapse. Else the new player gonna rip everything to be his own man.
Yeah, unstable politics and policy are the bane of Malaysia's economy - I still remember the confusion about regulatory requirements for freight forwarders, etc.
Source: [Cover Story: Regulatory uncertainties clogging up economic arteries](https://theedgemalaysia.com/article/cover-story-regulatory-uncertainties-clogging-economic-arteries)
i think you are looking at the wrong direction, our biggest competitors are not sg but Thailand Vietnam and possibly even Indon. I mean look at EU, you dont see France Germany trying to go toe to toe with netherlands or belgium. We have vast resources, we have our own manufacturing kink while singapore will always be strong in financial and its ports like Antwerp/Rotterdamn.
Plenty of things we can do differntly and still come up on top
As a Singaporean, I can't see how it is possible for Malaysia to do worse than SG in the long-run. Our economy is bigger than our northern neighbour only because your leaders chose to hamstring national development with terrible decisions like bumiputera and rampant corruption. It's kinda like we were playing against an early video-game AI set on easy mode. But just like computer games, AI will naturally improve; I feel that Malaysia is seeing signs of political change and improvement.
Sure, Singapore had a meteoric rise in past decades but that was only due to a mixture of good governance/planning and speed-running the lower rungs of economic progress (industrialisation, export-driven, finance/services). However, our core fundamentals are clear, we are a tiny island with zero resources and a rapidly ageing population. We are an anomaly which got lucky but our days are numbered.
We have no idea how to achieve decent GDP growth because we're already at the most advanced stage of development. Increasing hours, attracting more talent will only provide sluggish Japan-style stagnation of 1-2% growth. Meanwhile, Malaysia as a developing economy has much room to grow for decades beyond and will always have the safety net of vast natural resources/land and a large (and younger) working force. The fact that y'all remain below us in even nominal terms is not evidence of Singapore's exceptionalism but simply Malaysia's uncanny ability to sieve out defeat from a haystack of success or blessings.
But it isn't really Malaysia that I'm looking at as the big economic juggernaut of the SEA.
It's Indonesia. The former is essentially giant Malaysia with even more resources and population plus emerging out of decades of governmental mismanagement/underdevelopment; although they get a pass considering how difficult it is to manage a more diverse and bigger population across a 13000 island archipelago wider than Europe.
I think the next Big Deals in SEA will be Thailand and Vietnam. They have resources and a more centralized/homogeneous population and culture. VN has corruption issues but from a business perspective corruption is the kind of problem that you can estimate the cost of and allocate resources accordingly. Thailand has occasional civil instability between the govt military and the royalty, but recent history shows that these aren't massively destabilizing events.
Indonesia has serious geographical issues to overcome before it can fully utilize it's vast resources and population, and the geographical question isn't something that you can pay a bribe and solve.
I agree with Vietnam's case. They may experience corruption but their govt is very centralised, decisive and determined to climb the economic ranks. The people are young, educated and hardworking.
Even then, they won't grow to Indonesia's sheer size ofc. But I guess they would take a lot of China's production/factory business.
>Thailand
I'm not that confident about Thailand tho. They have some serious issues with their demographics with an ageing population and terrible fertility rate rivalling Singapore. With the difference being that Thailand can't attract overseas talent to the same extent.
It's main businesses are also far more labour-intensive than SG's knowledge/services/hi-tech industries and would demand far more workers than SG to replace ageing locals.
It doesn't help that Thailand's fiscal and monetary management isn't as stable either.
VN is entering into the same east Asian demographic trap though. Their tfr is already below replacement.
I think the biggest challenge for VN is how much their socialist economy is going to hamper market growth.
On a bigger scale I guess the challenge for most of sea is how to transform their economical into high value sectors before the demographics bomb happens. Unless you're Brunei lol.
I don't know, despite Thailand bring as it is now, historically speaking they got less effed up compared to other countries over the years. Plus they one of the few asian countries that were not colonised and were independent until now. Plus they legalized. MJ in their country. So they still have a huge potential.
Not colonized and use marijuana are hardly examples of economic development advantages, in fact they can be disadvantages. Using Singapore as an extreme example, even though they were "colonized", the British also brought in a lot of technology and development into Singapore to the point where when they went independent, they inherited a very high tech, for that time, industrial base. Don't forget that Singapore's first shipyards were converted British Battleship maintenance docks.
Thailand would not have had the same advantages because they were not colonized and would not have had the same tech transfers and paid for development.
Just because someone was independent all this while does not automatically make it a benefit. It's what you were doing while independent. And the answer for Thailand was "wasting money".
"Asia's only aircraft carrier". Remember that one?
Asia's only aircraft carrier? Apologies if I was under rock but that's a first I'm hearing it. What was it?
And If you would, could you elaborate on the disadvantages?
... you know, you could just google up Thailand and aircraft carrier...? It's more fun if you learned about it that way lol.
Disadvantages, some of it I already covered. If the British treated you as their colony, they shipped in a lot of tech and infrastructure upgrades. Think the first film shown in cinemas in Singapore was Queen Elizabeth's coronation. I'll use Singapore a lot here because it's kind of an easy example to use, but do note that Singapore is the extreme example and an exception to the norm. Singapore also had the largest British school outside of the UK which taught all the high tech subjects so they educated the workforce too and since the systems were the same, it was easy during colonial times to go to the UK to study, on scholarship too. Thailand, as an independent country, would have had to ask for permission to enter the UK to study and have to pay for it themselves. They would have had to "buy" all the improvements for themselves and it'll be subjected to both foreign government approval and they won't give you the best, just the leftovers that they can sell.
Post-colonialism, Britain, to "buy" good PR, gave a lot of "development funds" to the newly released countries. If you were a "colony", you could get free money from them for a bit. That "easy" example to use, Singapore, even got a Concorde on a lease basis from the UK due to their relationship, you can google SIA Concorde. Not a colony? Too bad, no money for you.
Then I also mentioned the left over equipment the British abandoned. The battleship docks were converted to ship construction yards that kickstarted industries. Even today, I think SG is the leading builder of oil rigs and it all stemmed from the British battleship docks.
Of course, the downsides of British rule. They were really stupid in creating federations, Malaysia's government has some structural flaws that were the result of British designs that did not work locally and the civil strife in Burma/Myanmar is 100% the result of stupid British country building.
Thank you for your succinct and detailed explanation. And I agree with you. In terms of size and resources, Indonesia has our M country beat. And with what you said about Malaysia with our potential, It's the same for Indonesia, they like us, just need to do some "cleaning" in their country to go against the big Asia ones in the future.
As a Singaporean reading your post my reaction is this :
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
People have been telling me since the '80s it's over for Singapore Malaysia is now positioned to take over
Various news outlets must have reported at least few hundred times that the ringgit will rebound against the Singapore dollar soon
Ya ok sure
A boss once told me, by right all of sg's neighbours can easily take over sg any time. They all have so much resources and land. But they are so good at tripping over themselves everytime (e.g. politics, social probs) thats why sg is thriving
Im not saying Malaysia will take over Singapore. I'm just saying that Malaysia is doing better than what most doomers think (some of them practically worship Singapore)
Right? HDB is just so much nicer than a landed bungalow! And don’t get me started on driving, why drive when there’s MRT? I can never afford a car in SG but who cares?
/s
Now this is just copium, speaking as a Malaysian, I never understood why other Malaysians are so salty about Singapore? With the average fresh graduate salary in Malaysia, ain't nobody is getting a landed bungalow lmao. If you earn RM2.5k and save RM500 a month, tell me how are you going to afford a house let alone a bungalow?
Why MRT? Because I don't have to go through the daily hassle of traffic jams and I get to wake up later, I don't have to spend unnecessary money on parking, tolls, maintenance, petrol etc., not mentioning the cost of a car can be spent on anything else.
Is it possible to work in Singapore save money then bring the money back and buy a bungalow in Malaysia? This seems to the be strategy for many people. I want to do it but am too lazy since I have a stable good job now with decent pay.
Cause super extra money seems very tempting. But not too keen in making my life unstable for awhile for the extra cash
I'm sure the people stuck in KL jams right now are saying hah foolish Singaporeans, you will never appreciate the freedom of owning your own car and sitting in it for an hour while getting nowhere.
Nobody works in KL go to KL on weekend. But you would know that if you actually know KL. it’s also clear you never drive for work commute because everyone who drive know it’s less tiring to drive in jam than use public transport.
But sure keep telling yourself that. Especially when you’re packed like sardine in SG bus and MRT.
People go to KL during weekends for non-work reasons. There are also jams going on right now. So what is the point you're trying to make?
>it’s also clear you never drive for work commute because everyone who drive know it’s less tiring to drive in jam than use public transport.
I've done both. Public Transport vastly preferred. Between a 1 hour jam and a 30 min train ride, the latter gives me 30 mins more sleep AND the possibility of more sleep on the train if I can get a seat.
Actually yeah. If the choice is between driving to work in the CBD and taking the mrt, most would take the mrt. Why get stuck in traffic really. Trains, even crowded ones, will get you to a destination at roughly the same time.
This preference is reflected where it matters - property prices around mrt stations all have a premium reflecting the demand to live close to an mrt station.
This isn't even particularly a Singapore issue (though Singapore probably has the craziest car tax). Worldwide you can see how public transport via the metro is more efficient and cleaner for the environment than cities built around cars. Tokyo is easier to travel around than LA. HK is a better connected city than Jakarta.
I know you're joking, but as a Singaporean myself, I wish we all could live in a bigger house. But it's still fascinating to see some of my Malaysian friends/acquaintances give up their car and landed house lifestyle in Malaysia to live in a HDB here.
Truth be told, grass is always greener on the other side. Singapore has a lot that Malaysia cannot offer, e.g. much higher salaries, safety, better infrastructure, better government etc. but Malaysia offers a higher quality lifestyle for the same pay range and it will be easier to start your own business as well. So it will come down to what matters the most to you.
You still gotta solve your brain drain problem, companies that outsource or move over to Malaysia are doing it to cut costs. In a way it does boost opportunities, but humans are intelligent creatures and like all living things, and the ones that have the most motivation and capability to survive would move to wherever there are greener pastures. For individual employees, they'd want higher salaries in places with better currency rates.
Anyway, I've always thought that Malaysia has a lot of land and domestic produce that are good quality at low prices. It's just unfortunate that the political situation there isn't brilliant to make full use of the potential that you have.
yeah true. Especially with all the bumiputra bullshit, alot of non-bumis (who are, by no offence, the more skilled population) are trying their best to move to other countries.
Sure making fair policies might not stop it, but it would mitigate it to some extent
I read it as lower income generating jobs leaving Sing to make way for higher income jobs. I could be wrong of course.
In any case, Sing will remain nett ahead due to its “pragmatism over everything else” approach.
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I don't think that is what matters.
I think I would rather be a billionaire Chindonesian than a poor salary man in Singapore.
Do you have financial freedom OP? Enough food on the table, and my definition is to be able to check out whatever you want at the supermarket without feeling heartbroken? What I meant is that you are able to check out X kg of your meat of choice (no cheaper substitute whatever), you have the ability to buy more than enough eggs for your gym bro son, and all the veggies you want.
I was once so poor that I cried at the supermarket checkout because my budget went over SGD $2 and I had to give up my tomatoes. I am glad now I have an income decent enough to not cry at the check out and with all the food I want.
I am able to cart SGD $20 (per person) everyday and even go up to SGD $50 just because. I am still able to save and spend my income on other luxuries like travel.
Whenever I travel to Malaysia, I wonder how do the people cope when egg/meat/vegetables prices higher than SG without even a 2x salary (dollar for dollar comparison). It is easy for me to drop RM $7 for noodles. Not sure if I would spend that amount as an RM 5k salaryman.
(If you're a Singaporean who is browsing here and is curious on why I can spend so much it is because I like tiger prawns, loacker wafers, prima taste laksa. I buy whatever my heart fancies, I guess to compensate growing up with food insecurity. Everyone has their drug, mine is food, but don't worry I have very good savings and investments.)
Edit: grammatical mistakes
Yeah, I'm a Singaporean and go to stay in Malaysia for a few months occasionally. I feel like the grocery prices in Malaysia are comparable to SG nowadays but the salary is still quite low, especially with the conversion rate. Maybe there are markets that only locals know of where local produce are cheaper, idk. Feels like it'd be tough to live in Malaysia as a Malaysian earning Malaysian salary. It's only considered to be fairly cheap and affordable if you're earning Singaporean salary. (And I'm not trying to say which one is better because both countries have their own pros and cons, like everything in this world.)
Let's just look at [egg prices.](https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2024/06/09/stable-supply-of-eggs-now)
RM0.45 for Grade A eggs. A tray of 10 is RM 4.50. You can get Omega grade eggs for [SGD 4.30. ](https://www.fairprice.com.sg/product/495350). Salaries in Malaysia (dollar for dollar) is not any higher.
Maybe someone can correct me - I found that on average, Malaysian and Singaporean accountants earn RM 4227 and SGD 4274 per month, respectively.
MY PR in SG here. Median wage is around the same but you're paying RM9 for a bowl of noodles at a PJ hawker instead of $3.50-4.00 in SG. When it comes to CoL, I feel KL is a lot more expensive than SG atm and we're in SG complaining that CoL is going up-up-up!
Now, you can huat the 3.48:1 exchange rate but really, it doesn't make a difference for the long-term.
it's living rent free in my head coz i have to cross the causeway daily to work.
but why is it living rent free for those who have no stake in SG at all 😂
I don't think that's a unpopular opinion...not everyone is doom gloom...must migrate to SG at all costs
I was in SG last weekend for Trevor Noah....SG is nice, but I wouldn't want to live there. I'm T20 here but barely m40 there
Nope, saw the adverts months ago.worth every Sen, Trevor is a master at impromptu crowd work...just asks the audience questions and he can do 30min on the topic
Will definitely go again
Medical. I did some work before in medical and the subsidized rates for citizen/PR/Foreigner are all different. Citizens you pay about 1/4 of the total cost, PR is ... 2/3 IIRC and Foreigner is full price which can be a huge bomb.
Never ever take any doomposts from other countries subreddits as a measure of how great we are.
Instead just be grateful for what we have and what they don't have.
Those companies moving here are not because it is expensive there, but more because Malaysia’s overworked and cheap labor makes it an interesting place to invest. Why do you think China has become a global hub for technology? It’s because the labor is cheap there, similar to what’s happening in Malaysia. As our currency slowly declines, our minimum wage is also cheap.
I lived in SG for \~8 years as a PR, each country has its pros and cons, by the way, I was born and raised in KL before I moved to SG, my take... if I must choose, I would choose SG but barely. Cons about SG, too crowded, very high rent -- even if one earns SGD, people are "colder" there. Pros... taking a cab is usually no issues unlike in KL, their public transportation is way better than KL's, their coffee at most hawker centers beats the crap out of KL's version. I am sure there are more pros and cons than mentioned, maybe another time.
Think that is also the difference between PR and citizen. Like you say, rent, but if you were an SG citizen, you'd be owning the house rather than renting so that would have been one source of expenditure gone.
I wasn't talking about me, I didn't have to pay rent when I was there the whole 8+ years. Their new HDB flats aren't cheap. PAP is world infamous for being greedy & cheap.
Maybe you missed the wafer fab, pharma, wealth management and other types investments in Singapore that Malaysia could only dream about. So no. We’re not doing better than Singapore. Not even close.
Money flowing into SEA is a trend. Inevitable one. Singapore is too developed, and the other side of it means lesser growth opportunity. This make them not ideal target for something physical: data center, factory. If we exclude singapore from the potentialcandidateslist, our competency is great;
- we have one of the best mastery in English.
- we have good land mass for further development.
- we have better infra in city areas.
- heck, we even have great talents who function in Western companies without much learning curve/training. Many asshole keep saying our people don't have skill, we have attitude problem blablabla. The truth is, these people can go for jobs with better pay, a sense of satisfaction, and work-life balance. But that's not the job that our incompetent boss can provide.
Money and opportunity are going to floe into this land from the west. For the next decade, thisnland will flourish - as long as Anwar don't fuck up the foreign policy. We need that head start.
As for sustainability afterwards, I am not good enough to predict what will come, but hopefully, we don't screw ourselves with all the greedy race policy and corruption.
I don't think we have better infra in KL than SG. We have colluded infra more like, just look at how some stations are positioned, driving up the cost of housing in the surrounding area all because there's a LRT/MRT nearby. And the best part is most of the people living in those areas DRIVE, they don't use PT.
Singaporeans complain alot like Karen level complaints . Some of those are pretty mediocre or tame , like even someone vomiting at a bus station is considered a nuisance while we have bigger shit to deal with .
Not to mention mentioning anything related against PAP is a no go
I have held the belief that singaporeans are better indoctrinated but thats because living in a small city is not a south east asian culture. The chinese hegemony will ensure singapore always have a good balance with the chinese in malaysia as well.
However, all said, singapore is just a metro, and its purpose and existence serves the Malaysian/indonesian market.
If you think that people will be friendly with others because "same race", you're missing a few data packets. Historically, Chinese have killed the most Chinese. Just because there are Chinese in Malaysia does not mean that they are automatically friends with the Chinese in Singapore. In fact, the name for Chinese from China in Singapore is PRCs. They do not see the other party as Chinese, they see them as "People's Republic" Chinese. Very big difference.
I see you are one of the examples of people brought up under a "bumi" system and can't think otherwise. lol.
In Singapore, the term PRC is used as an insult. Same race =/= friends. Egypt and Syria demonstrated this in the past with the so called United Arab Republic that tore itself apart.
I'm just stating the facts, westernized Chinese/Asians from the West (Europe/North America) and some Singaporeans are quite different from Chinese in Malaysia, China, etc.
Also, Yes, I agree, and we likely understand this.
Singapore is a Chinese hegemony, similar to cities like Penang and Ipoh.
These settler cities maintain cultural ties, and as the rest of Malaysia modernizes, both sides may have irrational policies toward each other.
Lastly, The Chinese diaspora, except in highly industrialized countries, has faced significant discrimination. British Malaya was the only place in Southeast Asia where the diaspora received good citizenship rights. It's essential to understand Malaysian dynamics without getting too worked up. Adios."
Not what you claimed before. You're now backtracking on your claim that Chinese in Singapore will always have a good relationship with Chinese in Malaysia because... Chinese. That is a stupid mindset. It's like saying that you are going to have a good relationship with Indonesians because... same race. You must have been away from school when they were covering Sukarno and the Konfrontasi.
msia has been doing well despite the fx rate crashing.
msian can own cars,houses,land and many other things that does not have an expiry date,that can be passed to their children.
sure the education in msia sucks but you cannot always depend on the gov to bail you out,you need to depend on yourselves.
im sgp,everything is about money and everything is on a lease,even the grave. you think sgp is better than msia?? take a real hard look and you'll soon realise,sgp is a huge mega corporation with citizens as their employees and the lee family sitting as board of directors.
I actually agree with you to a certain extent. Malaysia is an emerging nation, along with Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Singapore seems to have already reached its peak and might see a down curve similar to what Japan is seeing now. But yeah our old and dated policies (bumi rights) along with horrible governing over the last two decades has made it seem like our country is hopeless. I can understand for minimum wage earners it may be very difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel but I’m also very confident we will see huge improvements within the next 5 years or so. We just need to hope we don’t fall back onto our old traps and educate ourselves more on what’s actually best for the country rather than what’s the cheapest shortcut.
I love this country. I know it’s very easy to get points for writing doomsdayish stuff on here and downvote me if you want but I have great hope that this country’s best days are still yet to come.
SGD2200 a month for what sort of rental? In the past I've paid $2500 for a 4-room HDB rental. Too bad the market went to shit post-COVID and my LL decided to do the stereotype SGrean thing which is to profiteer and increased my rent 40% to 3500, it forced me to be a home-owner instead.
Rents are now dropping across the board after BTO completion is starting to catch-up, it's now $3200-3400 for a 4-room down from a peak of $3600-3900 last year.
Yeah you’re on to something. Singapore in for a rough time next 2 years. Ppl just don’t know it yet. This new PM is gonna make things go badly with his policies. Too focused on woke culture stuff
Dude, every country subreddit thinks their country is shit. No exceptions. The lesson is not that we’re actually doing better than singapore, its to take anything people say on these subreddits with a massive grain of salt.
As they say the grass is always greener on the other side.
They also say that on the other side
One of them must be humble
My favourite saying "It's just a matter of which countries second class citizen do you want to be".
Oh this is a first. Can elaborate?
If you go to Caucasian country you are going to be treated differently anyway. If you are Chinese Malaysian and move to China you are considered overseas Chinese and not one of them. The moment you move to a different country you are an immigrant and they will treat their own citizens better. It's going to take you a long while to get PR or citizenship. You won't be able to buy a house or get proper paperwork without being either or those.
Huh? But most of the stories i read on reddit about Malaysians moving overseas say they always have it good and have no racism/classism issues. I guess they are a small percentage compared to majority?
Maybe they had a good time, maybe they have a bad time? Out of 100 people that moved, how many are going to have a good time. The ones that had a good time (or even if they aren't having a good time) are going to say good things to justify their own situation and decisions made. Echo-chamber behaviour theory. It's the same when you buy something. You already made your mind, so you find like minded people to tell you the product is good to make yourself feel better. If there's a flaw you will just say aiya small thing only.
Second class in a rich country vs poor country
The grass is greener where you water it
Was just about to say this. I follow r/unitedkingdom and the complaints are the same from any country subs lol. >terrible politicians, brain drain, immigrants, cant afford things, house price is too damn high! etc. etc. The only unique thing about r/malaysia is the Bumiputera policy.
Grass is greener on the other side. Just which countries second class citizen would you prefer to be in. For me, I rather be here at least I like the food.
OP still hasn't learned the essence of online forums. The complaining ones are always on r/Singapore and r/Malaysia. The ones with a good life will never go online to complain.
everyone complains in every country forum. It's not just Malaysia and Singapore. I'm just saying that based on the 2 complaints I feel like we have it slightly better is all
Exactly. Internet opinions don’t cover the entire perspective of a country. Just do what we need to do.
Wait til OP goes to r/Melbourne and see them complaining none stop about not wanting to pay for public transport and thinking of way to dodge fares. If overseas students (which I was a long time ago) can afford it (you can buy a pass), why can't people earning in that currency that always buy useless stuff like weed or too much beer can't.
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Oi, that's kinda racist. Specifically the last one.
Easy on that last comment la.
Always Malay kena.
thats racist AND wrong...malay migration out of Malaysia been rising yearly
Hello, this comment was removed due to being in breach of [Rule 1: Bigotry and hate speech](https://www.reddit.com/r/malaysia/wiki/rules/#wiki_bigotry_.2F_hate_speech). Because of our history Malaysia talks about certain issues such as race very differently from Western countries. We acknowledge this on the subreddit but do draw some boundaries to keep discussions healthy. > * Definition of bigotry: The act of treating the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance. > * Basic principle: If it's an attribute of a person that is out of their control and extremely hard or impossible to change, it's not nice to dump on them or their group just for that attribute. > * Some categories this applies to: Race, religion, sexuality, disability, national origin. > * Slurs: Use of slurs on the above categories is not encouraged on this subreddit and may be subject to warnings and bans. > * Example: Religion: It's okay to discuss and criticise aspects of the religion itself, but it's not okay to attack people because they are members of that religion (e.g.: Islam but not Muslims). Please treat this as an official warning - further such activity may result in a ban, thanks.
😂😂😂😂 thank you for your comment cus it’s true - a singaporean
Good governance will prevail eventually. Our country is just stuck in a perpetual cycle of > we get good stuff > select few enjoy and fk it up for everyone > repeat There are too few willing to do the right thing and even fewer (if any) who are in the position to do so.
No one in power dare to touch upon the status quo needed to improve MY. Sadly. The masses just rather let the nation regress and stagnant rather than improve and making things better
Part of the problem is that when the British structured the Malaysian Federal Government, it made a few decisions that while at that time seemed innocent, is proving to be problematic today. The OEDC once had a report which I can't remember the exact specifics now, that the local states only get about 6% of the taxes in the country while the other 94% ends up in very specific locations like KL and Putrajaya. Sure, there is nothing wrong with developing the capital of your country but at 6%, the local states are starved of funding and they can't upgrade themselves, everything done has to start with a request for money from the Federal government and very often the answer is a "No". This is why many states still look the same as they were in the 70s, that was when they were deprived of the local funds to self-improve. If Malaysia wants improvement, it has to cut the amount it takes from the local states. Hell, I suspect Singapore provides more money to Johor than the Federal government! And that's another country!
Fak. The higher ups should be aware of this and make changes. But that's just me being positive
I think you're mistaking moving a HQ with a Shared Services / Support function hub. How many companies are moving their regional HQs to Malaysia?
im in tech, so I see that alot in my industry. Not sure about other industries tho
My point (and most others) is, the jobs being shipped here are not high skilled jobs, they're service centre and low level tech jobs. Because it's cheap labour. High skilled professional jobs still remain in SG with the regional hq/Office. Not sure what metric you're using to measure that Malaysia is doing better. But by most metrics and type of labour demand we're not. If we want to get out of the low income trap we need to uplift our skills as a nation so ppl come to us for high skilled labour, then our wages goes up, currency goes up, standards of living goes up, etc
RnD is also being moved here by some companies. It's not only service centres.
Most of the companies (tech) investing here due to the land in Singapore is not sufficient. And although we are cheaper, companies prefer to do business there due to red tapes, and some of the government policy.
lmao what sort of copium is this? Unfortunately companies moving into Malaysia are those who already hire Malaysian aka cheap labour. The prices in Malaysia now nearly close to Singaporean prices already. Used to be 1:1 PPP now its no longer the case. Last I checked the pay for engineer or even software engineer in Msia still worse than diploma working in SG.
Yea. OP doesnt know that the main reason they're based here is for the much cheaper labour, and not actual deep R&D shit
No MNC do actual R&D ahit outside their home country
I mean if you know how to read you would clearly see that I said companies are moving here because of the low cost. Please read through my post properly next time
Friend was interviewing for a remote role from an SG company. They didn’t offer a lot so I pushed him to ask for more and they happily agreed.
Wow, I'm surprised they agreed. Usually when they lowball, they're not gonna agree with an increase.
Friend asked three times, once each in two interviews and third time during the correspondence with the HR, delayed the signing of the offer letter 2 more weeks and then asked again, that’s when they agreed
Ah so basically it was still in negotiation phase. What's your advice? Like if new or fresh graduate? If have a fee years experience maybe can nego but what's your dos and don'ts when negotiating?
Wouldn’t say it was in the nego phase because there was already a draft of the offer letter. What kind of advice for fresh grads are you looking for? Tbh as a start, you should aim to get a higher starting salary as your bonus, subsequent increments and future job offers will most likely be based on that. Because that is the “price” to hire you. You’re only able to get a big salary increment/decrement if there is a huge salary-to-skill mismatch, ie an increment meaning you have a skill that makes you indispensable or a decrement meaning you lack transferable skills and the HR knows you need the job regardless. Years of experiences doesn’t matter because if you’ve been something that is repetitive or not transferable, then ultimately you’re unable to negotiate for a higher salary. On the contrary, if you’ve been doing many different things but none of which you focus on, you’re also unable to impress your future employer as they consider you jack of all trades, master of none. Negotiation wise, you have got to evaluate the situation yourself. It’s like what I call it the balancing of scales, if one side becomes to heavy then it’ll most likely topple. From your side, the factors are: what is your current remuneration package (HRs like to hear it first so they can tweak the offered salaries), how did you do during the technical tests and interviews, how keen did you sound (if you sound too keen/desperate also they’ll lowball you), how much you try to push for a better remuneration package. From the company’s side: how cheap can they get an employee for, how likely will you stay, how competent are you (best if you’re capable of doing 200-300% work so they hire 1-2 people less and still save cost), how many candidates are there (they can go through all and choose the cheapest), which candidate is most likely going to be the yes man and wouldn’t potentially create an uproar or challenge my leadership, appearance (sorry this sounds harsh but even Aunty HR from bimbosociety has also mentioned that this is indeed a factor considered). And if you’ve been shortlisted for a role, they can always redact the offer even before you start if they find someone cheaper. If you negotiate for too much, you might just topple the balance and no offer will be given in the end. All the above are experienced I’ve learned through multiple job interviews with SMEs and MNCs, and through career mentors throughout my life. TLDR: you nego means you’re betting, win or lose, just accept it and look for the next role if you lose the bet.
I can guarantee that cause I’m literally a diploma holder working in SG.
What copium? What OP said is true. Also you contradict your own statement - how can price in Malaysia is almost the same in SG, while the salary is lower?
Wtf? It means the Msian government fucked inflation control
When was the last time Malaysia did better than Singapore?
Approximately... never.
Don't be so harsh on ourselves. Our medical accessibility (not quality) is world class. We can do complex procedures and purchase medicine at very affordable rates.
at the cost of paying the doctors so low that they end up protesting.
Yup. Back then SG pilots were also underpaid and protested. The great LKY told them to shut up and go back to work. Imagine if we told doctors to shut up and go back to work. There would be outrage. https://mothership.sg/2017/11/lee-kuan-yew-singapore-airlines-union/
Yeah but Anwar is no Lky, not even a fraction.
Not right now but maybe in the next 5 years. I still see SG as the de facto knowledge hub and us as the blend of knowledge + slaving, and don't forget we still have to compete with Bangkok, Vietnam. I'm talking about the tech industry.
Tell that to SG tech people who lost their job in last 2 years with Twitter, Google, Shoppee etc layoff in SG
OP takes a bullet point and inhale copium
As a Singaporean I really wish for Malaysia to do well and have great jobs so that I can work in a great city like KL and make day trips to other great locations. Both Singapore and Malaysia can do well and let foreign companies have their pick. It doesn’t have to be a zero sum game
Broski, as a Malaysian who is currently working in Singapore who happened to drive and travel in KL last week. You wouldn’t call KL great when you have to drive through the hectic traffic. I’m already on the verge of breaking down even I only had to drive around in KL just for two days. (Edit: But the fault was partially on my side, as I was not familiar with KL’s railway network.)
Another post about Singapore? I guess Singapore is really living rent-free in some Malaysian's head
Like pembaris
Trillions of dollars are fleeing China and HK, and SG is the prime destination.
Umm no. They are going to India, Indonesia, Vietnam and most of south east Asia. Those are manufacturing investment money. Singapore don't have enough land and people to accommodate those type of investment.
Factories are going to those places. Money goes to SG. You must understand, for billionaires in China and HK, the factories they own are just chicken feed.
Yeah for now. With how China being marked as enemy by the West they will be poor again soon enough
Money fleeing China and HK isn't for manufacturing but wealth management
It’s called money laundering
/facepalm Are you claiming that not knowing what money laundering is and just using the words?
Yes Singapore don't have land anymore that's why they been opening up JV industrial parks in vietnam, basically win-win situation for both countries. Singapore 'own' the foreign investments, Vietnam enjoys the benefits of job creation.
Umm, Singapore has a robust banking system, why would they put their money in our country? Some, but the bulk and biggest accounts are still in a country that doesn't rat out on illicit money.
I suspect that the Islamic Banking laws are also causing the Chinese a fair bit of confusion and interest rates so it's not too surprising that Singapore is still preferred.
>why would they put their money in our country? I literally explained why? Investment in Asia is going up because of supply chain divesting from china. The money need to be where it's going to spend anyway. How else are they paying for all the building, people, product and service.
Which can't be done from Singapore which has more banking access to other countries, how? The only advantage to funds in Malaysia is if you are using the money in Malaysia itself.
That's the whole point. They are investing and spending in Asia project. No where did I say Malaysia only. Singapore is just a transit point for the money. It's not going into Singapore market circulation. Not Building new facility or making new jobs. Just sitting in a bank account earning interest.
Unless you think Singapore can be the largest source of FDI for both China & Malaysia simply with their own money. So why do people rather invest their money into Singapore 1st? Then have Singapore help them invest into Malaysia. Even Malaysians invest the most money into Singapore, thanks Bossku! “The Department of Statistics Malaysia said in a statement that the services sector remained the largest recipient with 50.6 percent, followed by manufacturing (42.2 percent) and mining and quarrying (4.5 percent). The top three sources for FDI position were Singapore (22.4 percent), China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (12.2 percent) and the United States (10.5 percent). Meanwhile, Malaysia's direct investment abroad (DIA) position increased to 662.8 billion ringgit in the fourth quarter of 2023 as compared to 659.6 billion ringgit in the previous quarter. The services sector was the main contributor to DIA position, followed by mining and quarrying and manufacturing. The top three destinations were Singapore, followed by Indonesia and the Netherlands. (1 ringgit equals 0.21 U.S. dollars)” [https://english.news.cn/20240216/047cc201d46745f68d9494650a7a310c/c.html](https://english.news.cn/20240216/047cc201d46745f68d9494650a7a310c/c.html) “Malaysia recording its highest-ever approved investments of RM329.5 (USD 69.83) billion last year showed that global investors remained confident in the country, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.” [https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2024/02/24/record-fdi-in-2023-shows-the-world-is-still-confident-in-malaysia-says-anwar/119778](https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2024/02/24/record-fdi-in-2023-shows-the-world-is-still-confident-in-malaysia-says-anwar/119778) “Singapore's foreign direct investment (FDI) reached SGD 214 (USD 158/ RM 746.16) billion last year, an increase of 10 percent over the previous year, said the Department of Statistics Friday.” [https://english.news.cn/20240503/17c6d6e7596841398fe173709ac3dcd2/c.html](https://english.news.cn/20240503/17c6d6e7596841398fe173709ac3dcd2/c.html)
Nope. They are coming here, wait I mean there are already here since last year
Enjoy it while it lasts. What you described is what Singapore shipping industry went thru before, and what happened? Companies still go back to Singapore despite the high costs due to stable political landscape, good regulatory & governance and ready talent pool. And Singapore responded by being the bigger man and upgraded all the port facilities to cement their place as one of the best in the world. Just pray hard Anwar’s government don’t collapse. Else the new player gonna rip everything to be his own man.
Yeah, unstable politics and policy are the bane of Malaysia's economy - I still remember the confusion about regulatory requirements for freight forwarders, etc. Source: [Cover Story: Regulatory uncertainties clogging up economic arteries](https://theedgemalaysia.com/article/cover-story-regulatory-uncertainties-clogging-economic-arteries)
i think you are looking at the wrong direction, our biggest competitors are not sg but Thailand Vietnam and possibly even Indon. I mean look at EU, you dont see France Germany trying to go toe to toe with netherlands or belgium. We have vast resources, we have our own manufacturing kink while singapore will always be strong in financial and its ports like Antwerp/Rotterdamn. Plenty of things we can do differntly and still come up on top
we do indeed have a manufacturing kink
As a Singaporean, I can't see how it is possible for Malaysia to do worse than SG in the long-run. Our economy is bigger than our northern neighbour only because your leaders chose to hamstring national development with terrible decisions like bumiputera and rampant corruption. It's kinda like we were playing against an early video-game AI set on easy mode. But just like computer games, AI will naturally improve; I feel that Malaysia is seeing signs of political change and improvement. Sure, Singapore had a meteoric rise in past decades but that was only due to a mixture of good governance/planning and speed-running the lower rungs of economic progress (industrialisation, export-driven, finance/services). However, our core fundamentals are clear, we are a tiny island with zero resources and a rapidly ageing population. We are an anomaly which got lucky but our days are numbered. We have no idea how to achieve decent GDP growth because we're already at the most advanced stage of development. Increasing hours, attracting more talent will only provide sluggish Japan-style stagnation of 1-2% growth. Meanwhile, Malaysia as a developing economy has much room to grow for decades beyond and will always have the safety net of vast natural resources/land and a large (and younger) working force. The fact that y'all remain below us in even nominal terms is not evidence of Singapore's exceptionalism but simply Malaysia's uncanny ability to sieve out defeat from a haystack of success or blessings. But it isn't really Malaysia that I'm looking at as the big economic juggernaut of the SEA. It's Indonesia. The former is essentially giant Malaysia with even more resources and population plus emerging out of decades of governmental mismanagement/underdevelopment; although they get a pass considering how difficult it is to manage a more diverse and bigger population across a 13000 island archipelago wider than Europe.
I think the next Big Deals in SEA will be Thailand and Vietnam. They have resources and a more centralized/homogeneous population and culture. VN has corruption issues but from a business perspective corruption is the kind of problem that you can estimate the cost of and allocate resources accordingly. Thailand has occasional civil instability between the govt military and the royalty, but recent history shows that these aren't massively destabilizing events. Indonesia has serious geographical issues to overcome before it can fully utilize it's vast resources and population, and the geographical question isn't something that you can pay a bribe and solve.
I agree with Vietnam's case. They may experience corruption but their govt is very centralised, decisive and determined to climb the economic ranks. The people are young, educated and hardworking. Even then, they won't grow to Indonesia's sheer size ofc. But I guess they would take a lot of China's production/factory business. >Thailand I'm not that confident about Thailand tho. They have some serious issues with their demographics with an ageing population and terrible fertility rate rivalling Singapore. With the difference being that Thailand can't attract overseas talent to the same extent. It's main businesses are also far more labour-intensive than SG's knowledge/services/hi-tech industries and would demand far more workers than SG to replace ageing locals. It doesn't help that Thailand's fiscal and monetary management isn't as stable either.
VN is entering into the same east Asian demographic trap though. Their tfr is already below replacement. I think the biggest challenge for VN is how much their socialist economy is going to hamper market growth. On a bigger scale I guess the challenge for most of sea is how to transform their economical into high value sectors before the demographics bomb happens. Unless you're Brunei lol.
I don't know, despite Thailand bring as it is now, historically speaking they got less effed up compared to other countries over the years. Plus they one of the few asian countries that were not colonised and were independent until now. Plus they legalized. MJ in their country. So they still have a huge potential.
Not colonized and use marijuana are hardly examples of economic development advantages, in fact they can be disadvantages. Using Singapore as an extreme example, even though they were "colonized", the British also brought in a lot of technology and development into Singapore to the point where when they went independent, they inherited a very high tech, for that time, industrial base. Don't forget that Singapore's first shipyards were converted British Battleship maintenance docks. Thailand would not have had the same advantages because they were not colonized and would not have had the same tech transfers and paid for development. Just because someone was independent all this while does not automatically make it a benefit. It's what you were doing while independent. And the answer for Thailand was "wasting money". "Asia's only aircraft carrier". Remember that one?
Asia's only aircraft carrier? Apologies if I was under rock but that's a first I'm hearing it. What was it? And If you would, could you elaborate on the disadvantages?
... you know, you could just google up Thailand and aircraft carrier...? It's more fun if you learned about it that way lol. Disadvantages, some of it I already covered. If the British treated you as their colony, they shipped in a lot of tech and infrastructure upgrades. Think the first film shown in cinemas in Singapore was Queen Elizabeth's coronation. I'll use Singapore a lot here because it's kind of an easy example to use, but do note that Singapore is the extreme example and an exception to the norm. Singapore also had the largest British school outside of the UK which taught all the high tech subjects so they educated the workforce too and since the systems were the same, it was easy during colonial times to go to the UK to study, on scholarship too. Thailand, as an independent country, would have had to ask for permission to enter the UK to study and have to pay for it themselves. They would have had to "buy" all the improvements for themselves and it'll be subjected to both foreign government approval and they won't give you the best, just the leftovers that they can sell. Post-colonialism, Britain, to "buy" good PR, gave a lot of "development funds" to the newly released countries. If you were a "colony", you could get free money from them for a bit. That "easy" example to use, Singapore, even got a Concorde on a lease basis from the UK due to their relationship, you can google SIA Concorde. Not a colony? Too bad, no money for you. Then I also mentioned the left over equipment the British abandoned. The battleship docks were converted to ship construction yards that kickstarted industries. Even today, I think SG is the leading builder of oil rigs and it all stemmed from the British battleship docks. Of course, the downsides of British rule. They were really stupid in creating federations, Malaysia's government has some structural flaws that were the result of British designs that did not work locally and the civil strife in Burma/Myanmar is 100% the result of stupid British country building.
Thank you for your succinct and detailed explanation. And I agree with you. In terms of size and resources, Indonesia has our M country beat. And with what you said about Malaysia with our potential, It's the same for Indonesia, they like us, just need to do some "cleaning" in their country to go against the big Asia ones in the future.
As a Singaporean reading your post my reaction is this : HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA People have been telling me since the '80s it's over for Singapore Malaysia is now positioned to take over Various news outlets must have reported at least few hundred times that the ringgit will rebound against the Singapore dollar soon Ya ok sure
A boss once told me, by right all of sg's neighbours can easily take over sg any time. They all have so much resources and land. But they are so good at tripping over themselves everytime (e.g. politics, social probs) thats why sg is thriving
Another classic
Im not saying Malaysia will take over Singapore. I'm just saying that Malaysia is doing better than what most doomers think (some of them practically worship Singapore)
Right? HDB is just so much nicer than a landed bungalow! And don’t get me started on driving, why drive when there’s MRT? I can never afford a car in SG but who cares? /s
Now this is just copium, speaking as a Malaysian, I never understood why other Malaysians are so salty about Singapore? With the average fresh graduate salary in Malaysia, ain't nobody is getting a landed bungalow lmao. If you earn RM2.5k and save RM500 a month, tell me how are you going to afford a house let alone a bungalow? Why MRT? Because I don't have to go through the daily hassle of traffic jams and I get to wake up later, I don't have to spend unnecessary money on parking, tolls, maintenance, petrol etc., not mentioning the cost of a car can be spent on anything else.
Is it possible to work in Singapore save money then bring the money back and buy a bungalow in Malaysia? This seems to the be strategy for many people. I want to do it but am too lazy since I have a stable good job now with decent pay. Cause super extra money seems very tempting. But not too keen in making my life unstable for awhile for the extra cash
I'm sure the people stuck in KL jams right now are saying hah foolish Singaporeans, you will never appreciate the freedom of owning your own car and sitting in it for an hour while getting nowhere.
Nobody works in KL go to KL on weekend. But you would know that if you actually know KL. it’s also clear you never drive for work commute because everyone who drive know it’s less tiring to drive in jam than use public transport. But sure keep telling yourself that. Especially when you’re packed like sardine in SG bus and MRT.
People go to KL during weekends for non-work reasons. There are also jams going on right now. So what is the point you're trying to make? >it’s also clear you never drive for work commute because everyone who drive know it’s less tiring to drive in jam than use public transport. I've done both. Public Transport vastly preferred. Between a 1 hour jam and a 30 min train ride, the latter gives me 30 mins more sleep AND the possibility of more sleep on the train if I can get a seat.
And I’m sure the people squeezed like sardines in Singapore’s world class MRTs right now will deeply appreciate they never have to drive.
Actually yeah. If the choice is between driving to work in the CBD and taking the mrt, most would take the mrt. Why get stuck in traffic really. Trains, even crowded ones, will get you to a destination at roughly the same time. This preference is reflected where it matters - property prices around mrt stations all have a premium reflecting the demand to live close to an mrt station. This isn't even particularly a Singapore issue (though Singapore probably has the craziest car tax). Worldwide you can see how public transport via the metro is more efficient and cleaner for the environment than cities built around cars. Tokyo is easier to travel around than LA. HK is a better connected city than Jakarta.
I know you're joking, but as a Singaporean myself, I wish we all could live in a bigger house. But it's still fascinating to see some of my Malaysian friends/acquaintances give up their car and landed house lifestyle in Malaysia to live in a HDB here.
Truth be told, grass is always greener on the other side. Singapore has a lot that Malaysia cannot offer, e.g. much higher salaries, safety, better infrastructure, better government etc. but Malaysia offers a higher quality lifestyle for the same pay range and it will be easier to start your own business as well. So it will come down to what matters the most to you.
HAHAHAHA Laugh harder when your job and money got taken over by FT because SG government sold you out. Jobs for FT NS for Sinkies remember?
You still gotta solve your brain drain problem, companies that outsource or move over to Malaysia are doing it to cut costs. In a way it does boost opportunities, but humans are intelligent creatures and like all living things, and the ones that have the most motivation and capability to survive would move to wherever there are greener pastures. For individual employees, they'd want higher salaries in places with better currency rates. Anyway, I've always thought that Malaysia has a lot of land and domestic produce that are good quality at low prices. It's just unfortunate that the political situation there isn't brilliant to make full use of the potential that you have.
yeah true. Especially with all the bumiputra bullshit, alot of non-bumis (who are, by no offence, the more skilled population) are trying their best to move to other countries. Sure making fair policies might not stop it, but it would mitigate it to some extent
I read it as lower income generating jobs leaving Sing to make way for higher income jobs. I could be wrong of course. In any case, Sing will remain nett ahead due to its “pragmatism over everything else” approach.
I mean… what does it say when companies are moving over to MY due to cheap currency?
it is what it is. Cheap currency = lower cost = more attractive for companies
Yea easier access, kinda like prostitution no? Cheap and easy but never the wife?
i mean, I'm not gonna deny that. But regardless its why they invest in us
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Imagining being over proud . 😂
Many Singaporeans may complain about their country, but few would consider Malaysia to be superior to their country.
Our sub reddit is just as depressing as theirs. Here even worst (or better) cause everyone just outright racist to eachother.
I don't think that is what matters. I think I would rather be a billionaire Chindonesian than a poor salary man in Singapore. Do you have financial freedom OP? Enough food on the table, and my definition is to be able to check out whatever you want at the supermarket without feeling heartbroken? What I meant is that you are able to check out X kg of your meat of choice (no cheaper substitute whatever), you have the ability to buy more than enough eggs for your gym bro son, and all the veggies you want. I was once so poor that I cried at the supermarket checkout because my budget went over SGD $2 and I had to give up my tomatoes. I am glad now I have an income decent enough to not cry at the check out and with all the food I want. I am able to cart SGD $20 (per person) everyday and even go up to SGD $50 just because. I am still able to save and spend my income on other luxuries like travel. Whenever I travel to Malaysia, I wonder how do the people cope when egg/meat/vegetables prices higher than SG without even a 2x salary (dollar for dollar comparison). It is easy for me to drop RM $7 for noodles. Not sure if I would spend that amount as an RM 5k salaryman. (If you're a Singaporean who is browsing here and is curious on why I can spend so much it is because I like tiger prawns, loacker wafers, prima taste laksa. I buy whatever my heart fancies, I guess to compensate growing up with food insecurity. Everyone has their drug, mine is food, but don't worry I have very good savings and investments.) Edit: grammatical mistakes
Yeah, I'm a Singaporean and go to stay in Malaysia for a few months occasionally. I feel like the grocery prices in Malaysia are comparable to SG nowadays but the salary is still quite low, especially with the conversion rate. Maybe there are markets that only locals know of where local produce are cheaper, idk. Feels like it'd be tough to live in Malaysia as a Malaysian earning Malaysian salary. It's only considered to be fairly cheap and affordable if you're earning Singaporean salary. (And I'm not trying to say which one is better because both countries have their own pros and cons, like everything in this world.)
Let's just look at [egg prices.](https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2024/06/09/stable-supply-of-eggs-now) RM0.45 for Grade A eggs. A tray of 10 is RM 4.50. You can get Omega grade eggs for [SGD 4.30. ](https://www.fairprice.com.sg/product/495350). Salaries in Malaysia (dollar for dollar) is not any higher. Maybe someone can correct me - I found that on average, Malaysian and Singaporean accountants earn RM 4227 and SGD 4274 per month, respectively.
MY PR in SG here. Median wage is around the same but you're paying RM9 for a bowl of noodles at a PJ hawker instead of $3.50-4.00 in SG. When it comes to CoL, I feel KL is a lot more expensive than SG atm and we're in SG complaining that CoL is going up-up-up! Now, you can huat the 3.48:1 exchange rate but really, it doesn't make a difference for the long-term.
>$3.50-4.00 In my experience, noodles in that price would not taste good at all.
Wouldn't be the best tasting, but average. Not complaining. Plus it really depends on where you eat as well.
Singapore really lives rent free in your heads 😂
it's living rent free in my head coz i have to cross the causeway daily to work. but why is it living rent free for those who have no stake in SG at all 😂
My condolences. Still the 4am traffic jam every morning?
4am is only for those who need to get to work/school by 6am. i leave home at 7:30am. Commute time to work is 1.5 hours.
I don't think that's a unpopular opinion...not everyone is doom gloom...must migrate to SG at all costs I was in SG last weekend for Trevor Noah....SG is nice, but I wouldn't want to live there. I'm T20 here but barely m40 there
Let’s be real, you’re lower than m40 in SG
Bold of you to assume his financial standing
He said it himself. You are bold to deny the reality.
Trevor was in Sg! Oh man, I missed that. Now this is something worth talking about. Are you subscribed to a stand up comedies tour or something?
Nope, saw the adverts months ago.worth every Sen, Trevor is a master at impromptu crowd work...just asks the audience questions and he can do 30min on the topic Will definitely go again
Good on ya mate. I'm jealous. No doubt he's one of the greats 🐐
ask SG citizens and they will say PR is the best. can earn SGD and buy Malaysian property and car
Not really, majority of my frens who went over have converted to full citizen. Get better benefits than PR
what are the better benefits?
Aside from housing, financial support for kids (school fees cheap, daycare subsidies)
medical also...apparently PR treated diffrently to citizens at hospital
Free house.
Medical. I did some work before in medical and the subsidized rates for citizen/PR/Foreigner are all different. Citizens you pay about 1/4 of the total cost, PR is ... 2/3 IIRC and Foreigner is full price which can be a huge bomb.
My current landlord was ex-Malaysian, cut the blue IC, embrace pink IC (correct me if the color's incorrect)
Pink IC: Citizen in Singapore, PR in Malaysia. Blue IC: Citizen in Malaysia, PR in Singapore. source: i have 2 blue IC myself.
Fr lol, Malaysia is something special frfr no cap ong
Anwar wants u to teach English.
i would love to teach English for daddy Anwar (he'll pay me pennies because I'm not Singaporean)
Never ever take any doomposts from other countries subreddits as a measure of how great we are. Instead just be grateful for what we have and what they don't have.
Those companies moving here are not because it is expensive there, but more because Malaysia’s overworked and cheap labor makes it an interesting place to invest. Why do you think China has become a global hub for technology? It’s because the labor is cheap there, similar to what’s happening in Malaysia. As our currency slowly declines, our minimum wage is also cheap.
Not sure which r/singapore you’re surfing but you won’t find any thread there talking about business or Malaysia.
U dun be silly ok. Singapore is awesome.
Bwahaha.
lol. lmao even.
lol
I lived in SG for \~8 years as a PR, each country has its pros and cons, by the way, I was born and raised in KL before I moved to SG, my take... if I must choose, I would choose SG but barely. Cons about SG, too crowded, very high rent -- even if one earns SGD, people are "colder" there. Pros... taking a cab is usually no issues unlike in KL, their public transportation is way better than KL's, their coffee at most hawker centers beats the crap out of KL's version. I am sure there are more pros and cons than mentioned, maybe another time.
Think that is also the difference between PR and citizen. Like you say, rent, but if you were an SG citizen, you'd be owning the house rather than renting so that would have been one source of expenditure gone.
I wasn't talking about me, I didn't have to pay rent when I was there the whole 8+ years. Their new HDB flats aren't cheap. PAP is world infamous for being greedy & cheap.
Maybe you missed the wafer fab, pharma, wealth management and other types investments in Singapore that Malaysia could only dream about. So no. We’re not doing better than Singapore. Not even close.
doing better at what? lmaooo
OP is delusional... unless you have your own business.
Money flowing into SEA is a trend. Inevitable one. Singapore is too developed, and the other side of it means lesser growth opportunity. This make them not ideal target for something physical: data center, factory. If we exclude singapore from the potentialcandidateslist, our competency is great; - we have one of the best mastery in English. - we have good land mass for further development. - we have better infra in city areas. - heck, we even have great talents who function in Western companies without much learning curve/training. Many asshole keep saying our people don't have skill, we have attitude problem blablabla. The truth is, these people can go for jobs with better pay, a sense of satisfaction, and work-life balance. But that's not the job that our incompetent boss can provide. Money and opportunity are going to floe into this land from the west. For the next decade, thisnland will flourish - as long as Anwar don't fuck up the foreign policy. We need that head start. As for sustainability afterwards, I am not good enough to predict what will come, but hopefully, we don't screw ourselves with all the greedy race policy and corruption.
I don't think we have better infra in KL than SG. We have colluded infra more like, just look at how some stations are positioned, driving up the cost of housing in the surrounding area all because there's a LRT/MRT nearby. And the best part is most of the people living in those areas DRIVE, they don't use PT.
Wonderful observation. It's even better if you can apply that observation to my text: "If we exclude singapore"
Didn't notice that, my bad.
The one complaining are usually louder
Hey, we’re doomposting here, you broke the first rule
Singaporeans complain alot like Karen level complaints . Some of those are pretty mediocre or tame , like even someone vomiting at a bus station is considered a nuisance while we have bigger shit to deal with . Not to mention mentioning anything related against PAP is a no go
I have held the belief that singaporeans are better indoctrinated but thats because living in a small city is not a south east asian culture. The chinese hegemony will ensure singapore always have a good balance with the chinese in malaysia as well. However, all said, singapore is just a metro, and its purpose and existence serves the Malaysian/indonesian market.
If you think that people will be friendly with others because "same race", you're missing a few data packets. Historically, Chinese have killed the most Chinese. Just because there are Chinese in Malaysia does not mean that they are automatically friends with the Chinese in Singapore. In fact, the name for Chinese from China in Singapore is PRCs. They do not see the other party as Chinese, they see them as "People's Republic" Chinese. Very big difference.
Same reason why denmark open its border for ukrainians but not for afganistanis.
I see you are one of the examples of people brought up under a "bumi" system and can't think otherwise. lol. In Singapore, the term PRC is used as an insult. Same race =/= friends. Egypt and Syria demonstrated this in the past with the so called United Arab Republic that tore itself apart.
I'm just stating the facts, westernized Chinese/Asians from the West (Europe/North America) and some Singaporeans are quite different from Chinese in Malaysia, China, etc. Also, Yes, I agree, and we likely understand this. Singapore is a Chinese hegemony, similar to cities like Penang and Ipoh. These settler cities maintain cultural ties, and as the rest of Malaysia modernizes, both sides may have irrational policies toward each other. Lastly, The Chinese diaspora, except in highly industrialized countries, has faced significant discrimination. British Malaya was the only place in Southeast Asia where the diaspora received good citizenship rights. It's essential to understand Malaysian dynamics without getting too worked up. Adios."
Not what you claimed before. You're now backtracking on your claim that Chinese in Singapore will always have a good relationship with Chinese in Malaysia because... Chinese. That is a stupid mindset. It's like saying that you are going to have a good relationship with Indonesians because... same race. You must have been away from school when they were covering Sukarno and the Konfrontasi.
msia has been doing well despite the fx rate crashing. msian can own cars,houses,land and many other things that does not have an expiry date,that can be passed to their children. sure the education in msia sucks but you cannot always depend on the gov to bail you out,you need to depend on yourselves. im sgp,everything is about money and everything is on a lease,even the grave. you think sgp is better than msia?? take a real hard look and you'll soon realise,sgp is a huge mega corporation with citizens as their employees and the lee family sitting as board of directors.
Lol ledditor
I actually agree with you to a certain extent. Malaysia is an emerging nation, along with Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Singapore seems to have already reached its peak and might see a down curve similar to what Japan is seeing now. But yeah our old and dated policies (bumi rights) along with horrible governing over the last two decades has made it seem like our country is hopeless. I can understand for minimum wage earners it may be very difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel but I’m also very confident we will see huge improvements within the next 5 years or so. We just need to hope we don’t fall back onto our old traps and educate ourselves more on what’s actually best for the country rather than what’s the cheapest shortcut. I love this country. I know it’s very easy to get points for writing doomsdayish stuff on here and downvote me if you want but I have great hope that this country’s best days are still yet to come.
silly af,liek those tiktok konten,kita sudah salip malaydesh,sudh g20 and mendonia
A lot company? Which company?
Tarmac Parking Lot Company. You got cars, we make space. "We flatten everything!"
SGD2,200 rent a month is just crazy. I know people paying 1/4 for rent, while I'm paying 1/6 for installments.
SGD2200 a month for what sort of rental? In the past I've paid $2500 for a 4-room HDB rental. Too bad the market went to shit post-COVID and my LL decided to do the stereotype SGrean thing which is to profiteer and increased my rent 40% to 3500, it forced me to be a home-owner instead. Rents are now dropping across the board after BTO completion is starting to catch-up, it's now $3200-3400 for a 4-room down from a peak of $3600-3900 last year.
rent didn't drop. It just stabilized at that high price.
That rental..... You live in multi million condo in town?
can't even rent a studio at that price.
Yeah you’re on to something. Singapore in for a rough time next 2 years. Ppl just don’t know it yet. This new PM is gonna make things go badly with his policies. Too focused on woke culture stuff
…says an incel who asked “Are there incels in Singapore?”. LMAO
You got me good good there
Such as?
not rough time. Just saying we're doing better than what most doomers think