Sydney - Well priced for ‘top nosh’

Top nosh will set you back less in Sydney, our residents are better educated than in other global cities

and we have a better quality of life than Paris, London, Singapore and Tokyo, according to the

Sydney Chamber of Commerce Vital Signs 2006 publication released today.

Sydney Chamber of Commerce CEO Margy Osmond said that once again Sydney had fared well in a

comparison of economic and living conditions with five other global cities included in this year’s Vital

Signs.

“While Sydney faces a number of challenges as it continues to grow and develop when we compare

ourselves to other global cities around the world, truth be known – Sydney stacks up very well,” she

said.

Vital Signs is the Chamber’s annual report card on Sydney and charts the city’s ongoing development

as a major business centre, tourist destination and place to live.

This year, as well as statistics on business in the CBD and livability, Vital Signs profiles Sydney’s

emergence as a culinary capital and, in a special focus, looks at the way all the cities compared are

handling the problem of traffic congestion.

Key indicators in Vital Signs include:

· Liveability – The Mercer Quality of Life Index rates the quality of life in Sydney ahead of

Paris, London, Singapore and Tokyo. And Sydney is still a cheaper place to live than,

Paris, London and Tokyo according to the Mercer Index.

· Skill base - Sydney leads all our surveyed global cities in terms of the percentage of the

population that has post-secondary education and we have a highly diverse labor market,

with almost a third of the population speaking at least one other language.

· Economic climate - Sydney isn’t benefiting from the resources boom as much as other

Australian cities, but only the US and Singapore can beat our economic growth over the

past decade. Companies in the environmental business will prosper.

· Petrol, housing and education – Despite petrol prices reaching an all-time high, only the

car-loving Californians get cheaper petrol than Sydney drivers. Sydney house prices are

the highest in Australia, but they’re still cheaper than London, Paris, Los Angeles and

Tokyo. And private school tuition costs in Sydney are comparable to those facing parents

in other global cities.

Special Focus: Easing Congestion

· Congestion – Of the cities surveyed all six face significant problems with traffic

congestion. Sydney, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Paris have opted to use toll roads as a way

of reducing congestion. London and Singapore have introduced congestion taxes, but both

cities have found the charges have hit the retail and restaurant trades. In London, an

alarming 32 per cent of retailers are considering relocating because of the tax and 79 per

cent say their takings are down since it was introduced.

· Sydney, Culinary Capital

Internationally - Sydney’s food quality, variety and price is now widely recognised among

the best in world. In fact Sydney comes up trumps when it comes to the cost of top quality

cuisine based on our comparisons of a main meal at five-star restaurants in the six cities

we compared ahead of Los Angeles, London and Tokyo with Paris and Singapore the

most expensive.

When it comes to popular takeaway food Sydney, London and Singapore have the

cheapest fish and chips, Tokyo has the cheapest California Roll and London and Los

Angeles have the cheapest family pizzas.

Domestically - The cost of of popular takeaway food also varies widely across the city

from the east to the west. The cheapest California Roll in Sydney costs just $1.90 in the

South Western suburbs, $3.50 in the Eastern suburbs and a whopping $6.80 in the

Western suburbs. And fish and chips will cost you more than double in the east than in the

west

Mrs Osmond said Sydney had a lot to be proud of, but still faced many challenges as it continued to

grow and develop as a global city, particularly in transport and infrastructure.

“Only recently we welcomed the Premier’s commitment to a 10-year infrastructure plan, but despite all

the money invested in our road network, a recent Chamber survey revealed that 46 per cent of

surveyed businesses identified congestion as the most negative impact on their business,” she said.

“However our research shows that congestion taxes can have a devastating affect on retail and

hospitality businesses supporting the chamber’s long-held view that a tax is not the answer to

resolving the city’s congestion woes.

“Quite clearly we need to be more creative in encouraging more people to use public transport with

incentives such as salary packaging of travel passes and we also need to work on increasing the

reliability of our rail and bus systems so that more commuters have the faith to use them,” she said.

Mrs Osmond added that the Chamber would be distributing Vital Signs to Ministers and Shadow

Ministers in the State and Federal Governments and to Sydney City Council to highlight these key

issues.

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