Few years down the road:

Haha thanks for your advice. Although it is true that the uni does pay better (much better) however, the figures alone can be misleading.

1. Its is VERY hard to get employed by local U if you are not from an elite uni or if you are not a famous researcher. Elite = Stanford, MIT, Beijing U....
2. The figures generated is based on the top academics in the uni. And not everybody gets to become full prof.

As for poly, seriously they don't value PhD as much as masters with extensive work experience. And also poly don't pay that well for fresh phd (4k starting).

So yeah well .....chances for PhD in Singapore are really limited. So who would really want to do PhD to innovate products in Singapore?