The ups and downs of cost of living

The Rhetoric

“The cost of living in Singapore has gone down, not up.”
– DPM Lee Hsien Loong, Straits Times, Mar 12, 2003

The Reality

“Singapore’s consumer prices gained for a sixth month last month as food and education costs rose. An index of consumer prices rose 0.7 percent from a year earlier, the Department of Statistics said.”
– Bloomberg, Jan 27, 2004