Singapore confident and ready to save

Singapore - Singaporeans have maintained an optimistic consumer confidence figure for the first half of the year as compared to the global trend of softening consumer confidence, according to the latest Global Consumer Confidence study done by The Nielsen Company.

"Globally, consumers appear to have erred on the side of caution in the first half of this year with a softening of consumer confidence across the board according to our survey, although as far as Asia Pacific is concerned, markets such as Singapore, India, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and the Pacific continue to hold up well," Paul Richmond, MD Director of ACNielsen for The Nielsen Company, Singapore and Malaysia said.

"In Singapore, the favorable performance of the economy and job market in the new year have no doubt strengthened positive consumer sentiments to maintain the optimism carried forward from the end of last year. More than eight in 10 Singaporeans (84%) are upbeat about local job prospects and this makes the country among the top 10 in the world showing such optimism," he said.

The survey also found that the top three reasons Singaporeans would spend money on were ‘putting into savings' (65%), ‘holidays/vacations' (50%), and ‘new clothes' (32%). The lower two reasons for Singapore respondents to spend were ‘Out of home entertainment' (16%) and ‘home improvements/decorating' (15%).

Globally less than two thirds of consumers are optimistic about the state of their personal finances in the next 12 months and among the top 10 most confident was Hong Kong, which recorded the greatest increase with three quarters optimistic about their financial status, compared with just two thirds in November 2006.