Paris, Hong Kong and Singapore are the most expensive cities in the world

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Paris, Hong Kong and Singapore share the top spot on a list of the world’s most expensive cities. Venezuela’s capital, Caracas is the cheapest in the world according to The Economist magazine.

Singapore consolidates its position as the world’s most expensive city.

Paris moves up a place to the same level as Singapore, while Hong Kong moves up three places. These are the three most expensive cities in the world to live in and visit according to The Economist’s annual Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) survey, which is reproduced by, among others, the BBC and Bloomberg.

EIU compares price levels in 133 cities around the world. Only three other cities in Europe ended up on the top ten list: Zurich, Geneva and Copenhagen.

On the top-ten list, which actually consists of eleven cities, because
Los Angeles and Tel Aviv share the tenth place, New York and Osaka
rose up the rankings. Oslo was fifth last year, but is not to be found on
this year’s top ten list.

Paris has been among the world’s ten most expensive cities since
2003, and is “extremely expensive” to live in said Roxana Slavcheva
in the survey.

Big differences

The EIU Survey intends to help businesses calculate costs for employees working and living abroad, and for business travellers.

The survey is based on comparing 400 different prices of 160 products and services, including food and drink, rental costs, transportation, education, and entertainment.

In Paris, it costs $119 (just over NOK 1,000) for a woman to cut her
hair. In Caracas it costs her $1.77 (NOK 15) to cut her hair.

Inflation, currency fluctuations, and political turmoil are among the
reasons for some of the changes on this year’s list.

‘’An increasing number of places have become cheaper as a result of
political and economic turbulence’’ the report said.

Asia-differences

In Venezuela, inflation was almost 1 million percent last year. In the
country’s capital, the price of a cup of coffee rose twice in just one
week in December.

Syria’s capital of Damascus is the world’s second cheapest city after being bypassed by Caracas.

“As Damascus and Caracas illustrate, there is an increasing number of places where it has become cheaper due to the influence of
political or economic turmoil” the report said.

A number of cities in South Asia are also on the list of places where
the money stretches longest for people coming from outside. Karachi
in Pakistan, and Bangalore, Chennai and New Delhi in India, are among the eight cheapest cities in the world. These cities also illustrate the economic inequalities in Asia by being at the opposite end of the list from Singapore, Hong Kong and Osaka.

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