Archive for the 'Singapore Articles' Category



Recommended Bakery Shops in Singapore

Friday 13 August 2010 @ 4:37 am

Cakes, pastries, puffs and all manner of baking has taken over the entrées of the dining experience and no desert is complete without a cake and ice cream. So many events simply demand the presence of some sort of baking activity, weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and simple celebrations. There are many bakery shops in Singapore but which too choose? Which oe of them can build you your chocolate double fudge empire state building cake or design a something so unique and special that it is bound to be an ice breaker at any event you host?

For simple gatherings and birthdays, there are many bakery shops all over Singapore of the local fare that can cater to your needs. They usually have a wide range of flavours and some even give you the option of pre-ordering and delivering the birthday cake (or any sort of cake for that matter) right to your doorstep. They come with the standard candles, wafers a liberal spray of your loved ones name and digits in some delectable cream shop. Some of the flavours are pretty standard fare, from your blackforest cake, to your white or dark chocolate fares – they even throw in some local favourites like pandan or even chendol flavoured cakes. Don’t expect the extravagant, as these humble cake shops can provide good tasting and normally round shaped cakes, if you are looking for something shaped in a name with five or more syllables, you are more likely to find what you want in specialty cake shops.

If you are looking for that something special and need the touch of a chef to make your cake more extravagant and give it a veneer of awe, then famous places like Bakerz Inn can give you plenty of choices to choose from and even an option to customize your order to fit even the most bizarre of tastes. These sort of places use very special ingredients and infuse exotic methods with expensive ingredients, combining to give you a mouth watering and eye opening experience. Just a fare word of warning though, they are going to be rather expensive, even going beyond the $100 dollar mark.

The buck doesn’t stop here as they are even more intricate and gastronomic infused creations that are abound in some five star and beyond hotels. Hotels like Fullerton Singapore and the Oriental Hotel has some of the best bakeries and melt cafes that infuse special ingredients and new age baking methods to create fantastic creations. These are photo finish creations that come with a hefty price tag, but are apt for that really special occasion.

Finding a bakery shop in Singapore is easy; most of the really good ones have had their reputation taped upon rave reviews online. Bakeries in Singapore have become more than just a location to raise flour and add a dice of icing, it is a full or artistes and creative geniuses who see the empty baking tray as a potential for magnificence. From the simple to the intricate, there are many bakeries to choose from, catering from simple get togethers to that 50th anniversary with that someone special.

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Company Incorporation – Why Do Global Entrepreneurs Gravitate to Singapore and Hong Kong?

Wednesday 11 August 2010 @ 3:34 am

A growing number of individuals and private businesses are increasingly deciding to incorporate in Singapore and Hong Kong. Both countries offer a good infrastructure, with a pro-business and pro-talent culture which is reflected in the country’s immigration policies, regulatory environment, and the openness of its people. Moreover, their governments have ensured policies related to laws, regulations and taxation that promote the growth of entrepreneurship and commerce in their respective countries.

Hong Kong and Singapore have been consistently topping the list in the Doing Business Report compiled by the World Bank every year. This is due to the business-friendly policies followed in both the countries like low import and export costs, well-framed laws for protecting investors, and labour regulations that favour employers.

Both countries have again been ranked at the top of the list in the Doing Business 2010 Report. For the ‘Ease of doing business’ index, Singapore and Hong Kong are ranked at first and third positions respectively, whereas, for the ‘Starting a business index’, Singapore and Hong Kong are ranked at the third and eighteenth positions respectively.

Additionally, in The Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010, Singapore was ranked third after Switzerland and the United States in global competitiveness.

Hong Kong as a Business Destination

As one of the rising economies in Asia, Hong Kong is a preferred choice for business incorporation for many entrepreneurs. Already recognized as South East Asia’s key financial services and investment hub, Hong Kong is poised to become the main international financial centre in Asia, and is vying with Shanghai, Tokyo and Singapore to claim the top spot.

Hong Kong is preferred as a home-base by many companies doing business in Asia. There are many U.S. and European multinational companies using it as a gateway to China, and similarly many mainland China businessmen are using Hong Kong holding companies for real-estate deals.

Hong Kong businesses can gain the tax benefits related with most tax havens without compromising on their image as in the case of being based in a tax haven. Around 109,000 new companies were registered in Hong Kong in 2009 alone, which is, a record for the city. Starting a new business is a quick and simple procedure.

To make it even more attractive to investors, the Hong Kong government wants to make it still quicker and easier to set up a corporation in the country. By early 2011, the government plans to set up electronic incorporation and registration of businesses, allowing a businessman anywhere in the world to set up a company in the country through the Internet in just a few minutes. In a recent interview Hong Kong’s Registrar of Companies, Ada Chung, said “For our customers, we understand that speed means everything.”

On the subject of discouraging illicit activity and attracting legitimate business, she added, “We are trying to do both, actually, to enhance governance while at the same time allow for sufficient flexibility in the business environment.”

Singapore as a Business Destination

Singapore is a well developed and flourishing free market economy which has an open and corruption-free environment, a low tax regime and a per capita GDP at par with many developed countries in the west. It is the main centre for trading oil and other energy products, and is a key hub for currency trading.

The regulatory changes introduced by the Singapore authorities have attracted many international fund managers to transfer their operations to the city. While Japan and Hong Kong are the key players in the region’s hedge fund management field, Singapore is rising as one of the preferred Asian locations amongst hedge fund managers for fund start-ups. Singapore is climbing the hedge fund ladder at a quick pace due to the comparatively simple registration process, which is a critical issue when deciding the place to set-up.

Singapore is also keen to become an Islamic banking hub, predominantly in the area of wealth management and it working at setting up a regulatory system for the same. It will benefit greatly from being located near the Islamic states of Malaysia and Indonesia, and it has also attracted interest from Middle Eastern investors. Another key selling point is that unlike other jurisdictions, there is no need to rent or purchase a physical office in Singapore for incorporation. Virtual office services are legally permissible and can be easily set up by a local professional services firm. Singapore’s corporate tax rate is now at 17% and it allows many tax exemptions for new startup companies. Also, there is no capital gain tax in Singapore. All these factors make the country an ideal jurisdiction for business incorporation.

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Food Paradise, Singapore Lifestyle

Friday 6 August 2010 @ 5:23 pm

Food is the “buzzword” in our Singapore Lifestyle!

You shouldn’t diet in Singapore. Eating is said to be the second national pastime of Singaporeans. Singaporeans live to eat and while you’re here, you might as well join them!

Singaporeans love to Eat and their preoccupation with culinary matters means that finding good food here – at the right price – presents no problems. The variety of foods available in Singapore is simply astounding and staggering! There are venues to suit all budgets and tastes, ranging from the popular hawker centres and coffee shops to swish, contemporary restaurants.

Few places in the world can offer as diverse, exotic and thoroughly appealing a food scene as Singapore. The city has every imaginable cuisine, for every imaginable budget. Within a few hundred metres, there might be a hawker stall selling S$4 Indian, Peranakan, Chinese and Malay food specialities, a food court with Japanese, Korean and Thai cuisine stalls, a coffee shop serving up barbecued seafood and laksa, an Indian shophouse making wafer thin “roti prata” and “chicken curry”, and an air-conditioned french restaurant where a bottle of Wine costs more than a maid’s monthly wage. And that’s not counting the endless tidbits and snacks. No wonder that Singapore is often touted as “The Food Paradise”!

After all, Singapore is a multi-racial and multi-cultural society. As a multi-ethnic country, Singaporean food comprises a multitude of cuisines which can be broadly categorised according to the main cultures present here. It is not surprising therefore that the favourite local food comprise the melting pots of the richness, tastes and peculiarities of each unique culture. Singapore is a cornucopia of different cuisines and the variety of dishes available is enough to keep one eating all the time. Whether you fancy haute cuisine, ethnic foods, vegetarian or spicy local dishes, you are sure to find many great food choices.

As a large proportion of Singapore’s population is Chinese, it is not surprisingly that Chinese cuisine (in its many varieties) dominates, but the main cuisines include Indian cuisine and Malay cuisine. For more uniquely Singaporean food, you have to try the local hybrid Peranakan cuisine (or Nonya) food, a blend of Chinese cuisine and Malay cuisine that is hugely popular and widely available. Do note however that some of the local food is spicy, as Singaporeans are known to have a fondness for spice and chilly.

The food of these cultures began as dishes from the various motherlands, but over time, these culinary delights have evolved to take on a Singaporean identify after being exposed to regional and other ethnic influences. Indonesian cuisine, Japanese cuisine, Thai cuisine and Vietnamese cuisine are also well represented.

As a major crossroad in Asia, Singapore’s food culture has evolved as successive waves of migrants moved, settled and adapted to their new environment. Without distinctive produce of its own, local varieties of homeland staples have been slower to develop, but there are dishes that can truly be called Singaporean; chilli crab, fish head curry and “yu sheng” (Chinese raw fish salad) are three prominent examples.

The huge variety of cuisines marks Singapore as a truly international city. Everything is available, from the familiar Thai cuisine, Japanese cuisine, Korean cuisine, Italian cuisine, Mexican cuisine, French cuisine and Middle Eastern cuisine to the more unusual African cuisine or Russian cuisine. Some cuisines have their own geographical epicentres, like the Golden Mile Food Centre for Thai cuisine, or the Arab Street area for Middle Eastern cuisine.

In the Colonial District and the Quays, expensive restaurants hold sway and here you’ll find the greatest concentration of international food. Eastern Singapore is well known for its seafood and its Peranakan cuisine.

Everywhere, from the city to the heartlands, you will find countless hawker centres, food courts and coffee shops, where the majority of ordinary Singaporeans spend an extraordinary amount of their time.

Whether you hunt down the finest hawker food or prefer flipping your credit card in fancy restaurants, if you don’t leave Singapore puffing your cheeks and rubbing a full belly, you’ve missed out!

It’s hard to know whether this multitude inspired Singapore’s food obsession, or whether the obsession inspired the multitude. Either way, Singaporeans are obsessed with eating. They think nothing of driving right across the island to sample a renowned Sambal Stingray, and whenever a new food fad hits town, they will happily queue for an hour to get their hands on it. Food is a major topic of discussion and debate; everyone has an opinion on what’s the best this and where to get the best that. Maybe it’s a substitute for politics (just kidding!) – but then if you had this much fantastic food on your doorstep, you’d probably be serious about it too.

For Singaporeans, what’s on the plate is far more important than the quality of the china (or plastic, for that matter). The smartest-dressed businessman is as comfortable sitting down on a cheap plastic chair at a plastic table wading into a S$3 plastic plate of “char kway teow” as he is eating S$50 crabs in an air-conditioned restaurant. Combine this unpretentiousness and you have the best eating opportunities in Southeast Asia, if not the whole of Asia.

It’s not all superlatives, though. If your taste buds have been surgically removed, you’ll have no trouble locating one of the many fastfood chain outlets dotted around the island.

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Singapore Electronic Store Reviews

Wednesday 4 August 2010 @ 2:02 am

The world today is engineered in a way that most of us need a laptop or a desktop to survive and maintain relevant. Not having one means looking at the world pass you by; and you’re left wondering what happened. Its the information age and thankfully Singapore has kept abreast of such technological milestones and seems to have its fingers firmly on the pulse. Whether for business or entertainment, education or just plain informational value, there are many electronic stores out on the market for you to visit to fulfill your needs.

Stores like Harvey Normal, Courts have dedicated computer and electronic sections that have a whole host of brands and models. From laptop computers to desktop gadgets, there is always something for everyone and the price ranges will fit almost any budget. The best thing about these electronic stores is the very fact that they have an installment policy with reasonable interest rates – or f you have a credit card, you will enjoy either a 1 -2 year installment plan that is risk and interest free. You might get flooded by a sea of information here but they are neatly displayed with their perks and features emboldened by both text and a smiling, and ever waiting sales staff – ready to speak to you and fill you in on the details left out.

If you prefer the more colloquial and no frills shopping experience, I would recommend taking a quick trip down to Sim Lim Square and be amazed at the 6 floors of Singapore electronic stores which sell laptop computers, desktop computers and a whole host of electronic paraphernalia from cameras, digital video recording devices, mp3 players, latest computer tech and even cables and pins from a thousand different models. It can be quite daunting as you might notice that once store seems suspiciously identical to the other but that is the charm of such a place. Sellers are bold and usually get to the point, with bargaining not being out of the question if you know your way around the market place. This place is usually extremely crowded, even in the early mornings of a week day so time yourself right. You should go in knowing what you want to buy and what your budget is, or you will be easily distracted by shiny things you don’t need that seem to end up in your credit card bill.

If you like your air conditioning soundless and your service staff in matching uniforms, then head down to Funan IT mall, where the crown prince, Challenger, sits atop the last floor in all its computer and gadgetry grandeur. This is a refined version of Sim Lim, with fancy holding areas and well labeled enclosures with dizzying displays. Prices here are marginally more expensive but membership is available for those interested in saving up to and over 10% of the retail price.

There are more stores abound in Singapore, and searching for one isn’t hard at all. However, if you are looking for variety and security in your purchases, I would recommend the aforementioned places.

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Main Aspects of Forex Market Analysis

Tuesday 3 August 2010 @ 1:47 am

Online Forex Trading is a very complex work. There are many newbie traders that underestimate any tools, instruments and analysis and think that online trading is as simple as playing casino where you have chances 50/50. It is definitely not so! Forex trading is a very complicated system and only its total understanding, knowledge and experience can let you trade Forex successfully.

Though the interest in technical analysis is growing and sometimes it replaces the fundamental analysis, it is still obvious that technical analysis is not enough for a profitable trading in Forex market. The world economy is so dynamic and unpredictable so any news or events can have a big and sudden influence on the market and cannot be predicted by just looking at the graphs.

Financial calendar is a good instrument of the fundamental analysis.You can use it in order to be updated with all economical news and events and be ready to the changes in the market when something important happens in the world. The most influencing the market events usually happen in USA (USD) and Euro zone (Euro). That is the reason why 60% of global trading is done on EUR/USD currency pair. This is the most popular currency pair in Forex as Europe and USA have the biggest economical systems that influence all the world economy.

The monetary policy of Euro zone is regulated by ECB (European Central bank), while decisions are taken by Governing Council that consists of National and Central Bank and the Board (ECB president, vice-president and four other members). The goal of ECB’s policies first of all is the price stability. Their main aims are to increase the Consumer Price Index (make it not less than 2%) and to increase the money aggregate (where annual growth rate must be not less than 4.5%).

The Council meets every month, on Thursday of the second week when the interest rate is announced. During this meeting the members give the average review of euro zone economic development prospects and rates of interest that is the most important aspect to control liquidity.

The similar announcement of the interest rates in USA is also important for the fundamental analysis of USD. Interest rate of both USA and Europe is a good indicator for the currency pair EUR/USD. It is also recommended to watch the cross-currencies that don’t include USD for a better picture of a fundamental analysis. While trading with EUR/USD currency pair there is a good reason to analyze the cross-currencies such as EUR/JPY and EUR/CHF. The Swiss (CHF) economy, for example depends on Euro zone economy. That’s why the fall of EUR/CHF causes the fall in rate of EUR/USD.

There are many traders who focus on both technical and fundamental analysis while trading on Forex market. Though these analysis are very different by approach, they give the broader and detailed view of the market. It is important to be constantly updated in the world political and economical events while trading in Forex market, as any event in one of the country’s economy may cause the chain of movements in Forex market charts.

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