Chinese brides from Indonesia are the latest to be offered to lonely Singaporean men by matchmakers who claim their ability to speak Chinese makes make better wives than Vietnamese, The Sunday Times reported.

The brides-to-be from Kalimantan on the island of Borneo speak various Chinese dialects, can whip up Chinese meals and adjust to Singapore more easily, according to Simon Sim, manager of the Maybe Marriage Agency.

Borneo bride

"There's a language barrier," Sim was quoted as saying. "It can be a strain when they can't talk to their husbands," he was quoted as saying.

The Indonesian Chinese women are aged between 20 and 30, and come from large farming families in rural villages, Sim said. Their parents get a dowry of between 1,000 Singapore dollars (C$720) and 2,000 Singapore dollars (C$1,430).

While agencies offering Vietnamese brides charge more than 12,000 Singapore dollars (C$8,630) for a wedding package, Sim's cost 9,888 Singapore dollars (C$7000).

It includes return tickets to Kalimantan, a chance to pick a wife among 20 women, the dowry, a wedding banquet, suits and bridal gowns, and wedding photography.

Agencies offering matching tours to Vietnam said they are not worried about the competition.

"We have established ourselves in the industry," Martin Yong, managing director of Cupid International Matchmakers, told the newspaper. "We do thorough background checks on the women and our customers trust us."

Sim said his agency also does checks. The women go for a medical checkup to ensure they are healthy and virgins, he added.

Chinese men make up nearly nine in 10 of the 67,000 bachelors in the city-state aged 35 to 49, according to census data.

Sim said his clients are mostly blue-collar workers in their 40s and 50s.

"Singaporean women have very high expectations," said Peter Chua, a 41-year-old security officer hoping to meet a "simple, pleasant girl, who is not too demanding".