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As anyone at a multinational who has to manage the costs ofexpatriate staff will grumble, Hong Kong property is moreexpensive than just about anywhere in the world.
就像跨国企业里任何一位不得不管理外派员工成本的员工所抱怨的那样，香港房地产价格比全球任何地方都要昂贵。
Two reports released in September, however, reveal in exhaustive detail how expensive the cityhas become across a spectrum of goods and services.
今年9月发布的两份报告详尽地揭示了香港的各种商品和服务变得多么昂贵。
Julius Baer, the Swiss wealth management firm, compared Hong Kong with Singapore, Shanghaiand Mumbai on an unusually defined list of luxury goods, many of which wealthy expatriatesconsume. Root canal treatment, for example, costs $3,350 in Hong Kong against $1,839 inSingapore and just $463 in Mumbai. Golf club membership in Hong Kong was $386,489 againstSingapore’s $239,866.
瑞士财富管理公司宝盛银行(Julius Baer)编制了一份非常清晰的香港与新加坡、上海和孟买四地奢侈品价格对比清单，清单上的许多项目都是富有外派员工的消费对象。例如，根管治疗在香港的价格为3350美元，在新加坡为1839美元，在孟买只有463美元。香港的高尔夫俱乐部会员费为38.6489万美元，而新加坡为23.9866万美元。
The most startling comparison was that a 4,000 square foot apartment – or flat – in a primelocation would cost $40.4m, versus $13m in Singapore, its main competitor for multinationals’ regional headquarters in Asia.
差价最令人吃惊的是黄金地段4000平方英尺的套房（或公寓），香港为4040万美元，新加坡仅为1300万美元。在争取跨国企业前来设立亚洲总部方面，新加坡是香港的主要竞争对手。
Reading this succession of large numbers makes one feel the necessity to book an appointmentwith an expensive optician. It is hard not to agree that, as F. Scott Fitzgerald observed, the rich aredifferent because they have more money. This is nowhere truer than in the financial capitals ofHong Kong and Singapore with their relatively low income taxes.
读着这一连串大数字，人们会觉得有必要预约一位收费不菲的配镜师。我们很难否认，正如F 司各特 菲茨杰拉德(F. Scott Fitzgerald)认为的那样，富人是一个与众不同的群体，因为他们拥有更多的钱。这一点在收入所得税相对较低的香港和新加坡这两处金融中心表现得最真切不过了。
Cities such as London and New York are grappling with the problem of escalating property pricesbut nowhere is this ballooning into the political problem it has become for Hong Kong’s newadministration.
伦敦和纽约等城市正致力于解决房价不断上涨的问题，但唯有在香港地区，房价上涨问题像愈发严重，竟然成了新一届政府必须面对的政治问题。
The problem for multinationals is that in the coming years they are likely to find locals demandingever larger compensation packages as rents and property down-payments soar out of control. Ina report in September, Nicole Wong, head of property research at the brokerage CLSA and one ofthe most astute observers of the region’s political economy, made another startling comparison: between 2004 and 2012 the salary of a senior accountant in Hong Kong rose 11 per cent, whilethe price of a 600 sq ft apartment in Tai Koo Shing on Hong Kong island increased 136 per cent – a difference of ￡465,000 over the period.
对于跨国企业而言，问题是未来几年，随着租金和房产首付的飙升已经失控，本地人也可能会提出更高的薪酬要求。在9月发布的一份报告里，券商里昂证券(CLSA)房地产研究主管、该地区最敏锐的政治经济事务观察人士之一王艳(Nicole Wong)进行了另一项惊人对比：2004年至2012年，香港资深会计师的薪水上涨11%，而香港太古城(Tai Koo Shing)一套600平方英尺公寓的价格却上涨136%，总价格增加了46.5万英镑。
Ms Wong notes this increase “amounts to a staggering sacrifice of everyday items, as well as someluxuries”. She calculates such steep property price increases would, in the case of the pricedifference on the Tai Koo Shing flat, mean the sacrificing of the equivalent of 21 university degreesand 368 round trips to Thailand, a favourite holiday destination among Hong Kong residents.
王艳指出，房价上涨“导致消费者取消了在日常项目以及一些奢侈品上的花销，消费减少幅度令人吃惊”。她以太古城公寓价格涨幅进行了估算，房地产价格大幅飙升意味着要取消相当于21个大学学位和368次往返泰国之旅的开支。泰国是香港居民特别钟爱的一处度假胜地。
(编辑：何莹莹） |
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发表于 2016-7-11 09:55:49