Shortly after opening its doors on a Tuesday morning in mid-December, the Rolls-Royce showroom in Singapore’s Redhill neighbourhood was already bustling. US-China tensions remain high, financial markets are skittish, the risk of global recession looms heavily: it is the perfect time to put down an $80,000 deposit on a hot pink Phantom.
The number of Rolls-Royce cars registered in Singapore surged in 2021 and remained at record levels in 2022 — waiting lists for the cars now stretch into years. One type of buyer dominates. For the cars that leave the forecourt, a predictable future in the city-state awaits — shuttling the short routes between the mansions and apartments of Sentosa and other pockets of extreme wealth to luxury shopping malls, the discreet offices of their family funds and the private clubs of Orchard. According to employees at the showroom, the new buyers are overwhelmingly Chinese.
The flows are part of a transformation of Singapore that is becoming a proxy for the way in which one segment of China is dealing with geopolitical tension and decoupling.
Chinese individuals, their families, their companies and their advisers, according to a wide range of bankers, lawyers, accountants and investors interviewed by the Financial Times, now see Singapore as the vessel that can navigate them through a series of expected storms. At the same time, they add, it is becoming an increasingly vital place for outposts of Wall Street and the global financial industry to interact with them. For many years, Singapore has liked to sell itself as the Switzerland of Asia. The new cold war, says one former top official, is finally turning that pitch into a reality. The big question, though, is how far Singapore will tolerate being Switzerland with Chinese characteristics.
“What our agents are telling me is that they are expecting more sales with the reopening of China,” says Christine Sun, senior vice-president of research from OrangeTee & Tie, a property research consultancy. “This past year a large portion have been luxury buyers. Once China relaxes we are expecting more buyers in even suburban areas.”
“A lot of mainland buyers that have become Singapore citizens or permanent residents are buying units in bulk,” she adds. Singaporeans and permanent residents avoid higher stamp duty fees on property purchases — the tax for foreign buyers was lifted from 20 to 30 per cent in 2021 to cool the market.