DUBLIN, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/58fb66/singapore_food_and) has announced the addition of the "Singapore Food and Drink Report Q3 2008" report to their offering.While food price inflation might not be triggering widespread consumer protests in the comparatively affluent market of Singapore – after all this is an economy in which per capita food consumption stood at a healthy US$1,470 in 2007 and mere food availability is not a pressing concern – the market is far from immune from this global trend, as the author explores in its newly-published Q308 Singapore Food & Drink Report.
With regard to daily staples, Singapore’s supply is not at risk. The government has not suffered as a result of regional export bans of key agricultural commodities, most notably rice, and has even gone so far as to allow higher imports in order to create buffer stocks to protect against future market volatility. However, if supply is certain, price stability certainly is not.
Here, Singapore has been closely affected by the activities of its neighbours, significantly a 40% fuel price hike recently imposed in Malaysia. With Singapore importing US$6.5bn worth of food in 2007 and with the author expecting this to increase by 48% to 2012, the country is particularly vulnerable to such policy shifts in the economies of close trading partners. Singaporean wholesalers have reported sharp rises in food prices as a result of higher freight costs from Malaysia and while most have resisted passing these costs on to consumers in the short term, almost all have conceded that they may eventually have to.
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