Singapore offers best quality of life

Singapore offers best quality of life

Reuters, Hong Kong

Expatriates living in Asia have ranked Singapore as offering the
best quality of life for the second year running in contast to
Indonesia, which came in last at number 12, local newspapers
reported on Wednesday.

Thailand was second, followed by China, Malaysia and Taiwan,
with Hong Kong falling to a distant sixth, according to the
latest survey by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy,
which was made available to some local media.

The consulting firm surveyed 1,000 expatriates in the first
two months of this year.

It was the first time that China, which was in seventh place
in 2001, had overtaken Hong Kong in the regular surveys,
newspaper said. PERC officials would not comment on the study.

Respondents in China lived mostly in Beijing and Shanghai, and
attributed the improvement to construction of more entertainment
facilities, better security, medical services, education policies
and housing.

Hong Kong fell from fourth place and was criticized for its
pollution problems and expensive housing. Even though property
prices in the territory have fallen nearly 60 percent from their
1997 peaks, they remain expensive by international standards.
South Korea took seventh place, followed by Japan, the
Philippines, Vietnam and India.