A recent report that said Singapore is the costliest Asian nation to build in has been refuted by the director of Davis Langdon & Seah Singapore (DLS), who said that Singapore is still a less expensive place to build in compared to Hong Kong and London.
According to data from DLS, Singapore had lower construction costs for standard office space, standard apartments and “prestige” office space at end-Q1 2010 compared to London, Tokyo, Sydney and Hong Kong.
“Cost data recorded by our offices in the region has clearly established that Singapore is the third costliest city to build in (in the region) after Tokyo and Hong Kong,” said DLS director Seah Choo Meng in an interview with The Business Times.
Sydney and London have also been seeing higher construction costs than Singapore, said Mr. Seah, who was responding to an earlier EC Harris report, which concluded that Singapore is the most expensive Asian nation to build except Japan and the 10th costliest globally, in spite of a 5 percent to 8 percent decline in tender prices last year.
EC Harris’ international construction cost report, which covers 50 nations, said Singapore had higher tender prices compared to Hong Kong and London. The report also found that Switzerland was the most expensive nation to build in worldwide, while London was ranked 16th and Hong Kong was ranked 21st.
Yesterday, Mr. Seah presented data showing that Singapore’s building costs are lower compared to London, Tokyo, Sydney and Hong Kong.
The two companies gather data from their worldwide offices from the tasks they do. The report by EC Harris excluded values for Japan since it did not have any projects there in the last two years.
The difference between the data from EC Harris and DLS is partly attributed to their findings on how much the tender price in Singapore declined in 2009. The report from EC Harris showed a decline of between 5 percent and 8 percent, while DLS put it at 20 percent.
“The Building and Construction Authority’s (BCA) record has shown a drop of 15 percent; Rider Levett Bucknall (another consultancy) indicated a drop of 18.5 percent while DLS saw a drop in the region of 20 percent,” noted Mr. Seah.