The increase in GST from 5% to 7% takes place from today, 1 July 2007. It’s early morning and already I have had a run-in with a market effect of the increase.
You see, I was down at the coffeeshop behind my HDB block buying breakfast for mywife and myself. As I stood waiting for my turn for a packet of mee-kia tah (dry fishball mee) and koey-teow tng (rice noodle fishball soup), the stallowner turned to me and, with a sheepish grin, announced to me that the price of a bowl of fish-ball mee had increased from S$2.00 to S$2.50.
What could I do but smile back at her and say, “It’s Okay.” It’s a typical Singaporean response — giving an outwardly polite answer but resenting the whole thing inside. Why, that must be the reason why I am now rambling on about this episode on the blog though the incident happened barely an hour ago. I must be trying to let out steam on the blog.
One thing’s for sure — it’s going to be more expensive living a resident’s life in Singapore. With some hawkers already moving in to take advantage of the GST increase so that they can increase their daily earnings by a whopping 25%, we residents certainly have to dig harder into our pockets to come out with more money for daily living.
And there’s no turning back — the Government certainly won’t bring the GST back to 5%. GST increases need to take place so that corporate taxes can be reduced. Corporate taxes need to come down so that foreign companies will continue to find it meaningful to remain sited in Singapore. Don’t forget, we have no natural resources to speak of. The only thing natural that we have are our people. But, people need jobs in order to feed their families and these foreign companies bring in much needed jobs.
Hawker food price increases are no stranger to older Singaporeans like me. I was a teenager in the 1970’s when the economy was steaming ahead. Every Chinese New Year would see a price increase of about 50 cents per bowl of fishball noodle soup. You see, it is a local tradition for prices of hawker food to go up just before Chinese New Year and to come down to the original levels when the Chinese New Year celebrations come to a close. But, in those years — from 1970 to 1974 — hawker food prices kept going upwards and remaining there even after the celebrations had drawn to a close. That was how a bowl of fishball mee went from 20 cents to S$2.00 in the space of just five years.
If I remember correctly, when the price hit past S$2.00 to S$2.50, there was market pressure and further price increases could not be sustained. The price has since then hovered around S$2.00.
Come to think of it, the price has remained largely the same since the late 1970’s — more than 25 years ago. If this is the case, then I shouldn’t be getting mad over this 50 cent increase — after all, there hasn’t been any increase the last 25 years!
I guess I will just have to take things in my stride — grind my teeth, bear with the pain and move along with daily living here in Singapore.
