Singapore Ranks 4th in the Global Most Expensive City for Expats: Report | Tech News

The latest Cost of Living Survey commissioned by Mercer has crowned Singapore on the fourth place of world’s most expensive city for expatriates, moving up one spot from its ranking last year. On the top of the global costliest city for working overseas is Hong Kong, followed by Tokyo and Zurich, Straits Times reports.

According to Mercer’s global mobility practice leader for Asia, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, Mario Ferraro, currency fluctuations and inflation for goods and services across the board have attributed in the increasing cost of living in Asian cities. “While Singapore has climbed up one notch in the cost of living rankings from the last year, this is balanced off with high salaries and a stable economy,” he added.

Owing to this reason, the top 10 of Mercer’s annual ranking was dominated by Asian countries as it took six of the top spots in the survey. Besides Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore, also in the top 10 most expensive cities are Luanda in the sixth place, N’Djamena in the eighth, and Bern in the tenth.

With its soaring price of housing rents, Hong Kong rose up to the top spot of the list. It replaced last year’s leader Luanda, the capital of Angola, which dipped to the sixth position owing to the weakening of its local currency against the US dollar.

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Regarding this finding, Slagin Parakatil, principal at Mercer responsible for compiling the survey said, “The strengthening of the Chinese yuan pushed Chinese cities up in the ranking, however, most cities in Japan fell in the ranking due to the weakening of the Japanese yen against the US dollar.”

Elsewhere in Asia, Mumbai is ranked as India’s most expensive city for expats at 55 position, while Kuala Lumpur rose twenty places to come in at 145.

Meanwhile, on the other hand, most cities in developing countries and war-torn regions populate the bottom of the ranking. The survey revealed that globally, the least expensive cities for expatriates included Bishkek in the 207th place, Tunis 208th, and Tashkent 209th.

About 209 countries across five continents were surveyed in the study, measuring the comparative cost of more than 200 items in each location – including housing, transportation, food, clothing, household goods, as well as entertainment.

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