Hello everyone,
If you are planning to settle abroad, here is some useful information for you.
Singapore ranks as the world's most expensive city for expats for the 3rd consecutive year in Economist Intelligence Unit report on world cost of living. Indeed, the City State ranks 1st, followed by Zurich, Hong Kong, Geneva and Paris. The French capital city, for its part, has fallen down 3 places due to weak confidence in the euro, but remains the most expensive city in the Euro Zone.
Note that this survey, conducted since more than 30 years and published twice a year, takes into account more than 400 individual prices of 160 products and services, including food, clothes, household items, transports, utility bills, private school fees, leisure, etc.
The report thus reveals that Singapore is 2.7 times more expensive that New York City in terms of transport, especially due to complex procedures regarding the purchase and maintenance of a car. Utility bills and clothing prices are also very high in Singapore. While Hong Kong ranks 3rd, climbing up 7 places since last year, Seoul ranks 8th along with Copenhagen (Denmark) and Los Angeles (USA).
Indeed, it seems like these major Asian cities are much more expensive in terms of daily consumption, compared to European metros. For instance, general basis groceries cost 28% higher in Hong Kong than in Singapore and New York City.
As regards Zurich and Geneva, ranking 2nd and 4th respectively, it seems that the will remain the most expensive European cities given than none of them has suffered from the austerity of the euro zone or the economic fallout from falling oil prices like European Union cities. This is due to the unpegging of the Swiss franc from the euro, coupled with a structurally high income and price levels.
As regard the world's cheapest cities for expats, you have Algiers (Algeria), Chennai and New Delhi (India), Karachi (Pakistan), Damascus (Syria), Caracas (Venezuela), etc.
Find more information here: www.economist.com
Feel free to post your views and share your experience.
The world's most expensive cities in 2016
Thanks for sharing! Good job!!
One should keep in mind that these rankings only give a first idea and are not applicable in all situations and circumstances.
For example, rankings use a standardized basket of good for all cities to maintain comparability, thus cannot account for differences in usage patterns (e.g. car ownership in Singapore is artificially made so expensive that basically everyone uses the excellent public transport, whereas in the US Midwest everybody has a cheap car and public transport means expensive taxis - but the basket of goods contains both in both places) and ignores goods that are and not available worldwide (e.g. Manioc as cheap staple food in Africa).
For the Expat reader this means: Your own, personal expenses will differ from the ranking and can be substantially lower (if you adjust your lifestyle to take advantage of the local pricing structure) or higher (if you insist on continuing the idiosyncrasies of your home abroad).
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