WORLD – According to ECA International’s annual Cost of Living Survey for 2011, Tokyo remains, for the second time running, the most expensive city for expatriates.
The findings also saw all of Australia’s major cities place in the top 30 most expensive rankings.
ECA International is a staffing and employee management services company and bases its cost of living indices on surveys carried out annually in March and September using a basket of day-to-day goods and services. The data used refers to year-on-year movements between ECA’s September 2011 and 2010 surveys.
The goods and services include food, drink and tobacco; miscellaneous goods; services; clothing; electrical goods and motoring; meals out. Certain living costs such as accommodation, utilities (electricity, gas, water costs), car purchase and school fees are not included.
Sydney is the 15th most expensive city worldwide, a drastic change from 157th place three years ago. It beats the likes of Moscow, Paris and Manhattan, Hong Kong and London. Sydney is followed by Canberra (17th), Melbourne (23rd), Adelaide (24th), Perth (25th), Brisbane (26th) and Darwin (27th).
“A year ago the prices of goods and services in ECA’s basket in Australia had risen by 2.6 per cent on average. Over the last year this figure has almost doubled to 4.8 per cent,” said GM of Australia, New Zealand and Pacific for ECA International, Anna Michielsen.
“This, coupled with the impact of an Australian dollar that has remained strong off the back of high commodity prices, has contributed to the cities rising up the ranking. As a result, the cost of sending employees into the country on assignment has gone up significantly for many companies over the last two to three years.”
ECA International said the last 12 months have seen considerable increases in cost of food, oil and other commodities in many parts of the world. Within the region some of the biggest increases seen in the local prices of items in ECA’s basket of goods and services have been witnessed in Bangladesh (15%), Vietnam (14.2%) and India (13.3%).
Top 50 most expensive cities worldwide:
- Tokyo, Japan
- Oslo, Norway
- Geneva, Switzerland
- Nagoya, Japan
- Zurich, Switzerland
- Yokohama, Japan
- Bern, Switzerland
- Stavanger, Norway
- Basel, Switzerland
- Kobe, Japan
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