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Is Bali more and more expensive ?
According to my fresh experience (6 months on the island) and what the 'older' residents told me, life in bali seems to be more and more expensive.
For exemple, i rent a house for one year, and now the price increase for 15 %.
I often drink an expresso in expat place, it is now 19 000 rps, same as my usual place in Paris ! It was just 14 6 months ago. And when i check the land price.....
It is really not about my little person, because i can and have to handle this, but i'm asked myslef how the locals can deal with this ?
Just an existancial question !
Karim
Karim - French TV journalist, director and designer. Actually living in India and soon in Bali.
I can buy corn flakes at bingtang supemarket 10,0000rp cheaperthen here in surabaya. Just depends on how you want to live, locals go on the price of rice, it goes up & down only by 5,000rp, still plenty of accomdation at 300,000rp a month so there life style has not changed that much. But just look at the cars on the street now, plenty of big cars now so some people are selling land way above what it is worth. wonder who is buying land at 10x what its worth?????????
Yes, prices are going up. Land prices around tourist development areas are going up at a fair rate, and this feeds into many business costs. And labour costs are going up. Someone who earns Rp1 juta per month would only have got half that about 5 years ago. This part of the story is good news for locals.
But with you example of the cost of an espresso - I think they just charge whatever people will pay and that depends on who their customers are. A coffee at a roadside ABC warung can still be just Rp1,000. So you get this picture of a 2-speed economy with lower prices for locals and higher prices for tourists/expats - but we all knew that.
The inflation rate in Indonesia is relatively high (maybe about 8%) - as an example the cost of a new Avanza or Rush has gone up about 30% in 4-5 years. This higher inflation rate is connected with the growth rate of the Indonesian economy which has been about 6% per year for the past 6 years.
I think the Balinese are doing OK because the island is realtively wealthy. Other parts of Indoneisa are experiencing the same inflation rate but with less tourism money developing their local economies.
Hi Karim,
I've often the impression that the locals have no problem with it at all, like f.e. Pepito Supermarkets is in my opinion one of the most expensive supermarket chain (especially little things like sausage, cheese, bread, fruits & vegetables cost a fortune, Carrefour is MUCH cheaper!), I only buy at Pepito if I need just one / two items or if I'm totally hangover & don't want to drive too far & fecking hungry...the people with the full trolleys inside are always indonesians, today I read that 0.1 % of ALL the combined indonesian bank accounts hold more than 50 % of the total money,
for the indos who think the prices for an espresso at lush cafés etc is too expensive they drink copi at the warung / eat nasi campur same as me
Last edited by sakumabali; 26-01-2012 at 02:46 PM.
First...what do you mean with local??
in my book there are locals and there are locals...in other words the people who life in a desa, work the land or do any other kind of hard labour..
or the people who they work for...both are locals
how do the first type of locals handle expensive capucinno?? they don't drink it, they don't even now what it is.
how do the first locals handle increasing rentprices?? they don't rent.
the second type of local, doesn't really care about if the espresso is 15/20/25 ribu..
the second type also doesn't rent.
don't read between the lines..i think the words are clear enough...:)
Good point!!!Originally Posted by gilbert de jong
Local isn't an agressive term. Just the people living here. Of course they don't have all the same condition of life. My owner is living like a bilionair... Anyway, it looks harder for those wich just have 1 millions rps monthly salary.
But my point is about the price going up since few months. And quickly !
Sorry for my english, it is my third langage.
Karim - French TV journalist, director and designer. Actually living in India and soon in Bali.
no worries...I for one didn't read it as an 'agressive' term for part of Bali's population..
like I said, there are two...well actually 5 kind of locals, the poor as dirt..the poor but get by...middleclass...rich....and filty rich.
but you're right..everything is getting more expensive.
don't read between the lines..i think the words are clear enough...:)
everywhere in the world is getting more expensive unfortunatly
In 1987 I was paying about 800 rupiah for a small Bintang. This was around $1 AUD.
In 2012 I am paying a bit under 10,000 rupiah for a small Bintang. This again is very close to $1 AUD.
This is not really a sharp increase over 25 years.
Many things vary on how you look at them. Two years back (Jan 2010) I was going to transfer a reasonable sum of money to Indonesia from Australia. Simply because I am slack I did not do so. I left it earning less than 5% interest in Australia. I transferred the money during the last week.
If I had transferred the money when originally planned I would have got an exchange rate of 7,200. On average the money I transferred during the last week realised a rate of 9450. This is an increase of 31% on my money.
The land value around me has not increase by 31% in the last 2 years.
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