Moscow world’s most costly city

Russia’s capital, Moscow, has been named as the world’s most expensive city for expatriate staff to live, for the second year in a row. London climbed three places to second in Mercer Human Resource Consulting’s 2007 Cost of Living study.
Asian cities Seoul, Tokyo and Hong Kong completed the top five. Paraguay’s capital Asuncion was the cheapest.

Asia had four of the top-10 most expensive cities in the rankings, with the Japanese city of Osaka taking eighth place. Australia’s largest city, Sydney, was the most expensive in Oceania, taking 21st place.  

In Africa, the most expensive place to live was Cameroon’s largest city, Douala, which ranked 24th. Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, was excluded from the survey this year. It is caught in a spiralling economic crisis, with the world’s highest inflation rate of 3,714%.

In North America, you will still have to fork out for a bite of the Big Apple – New York was again the most expensive city, but it dropped five places to 15th. Other US cities also experienced sharp falls.

“The change reflects a reversal of the situation experienced this time last year, when the majority of US cities climbed the ranking due to the strength of the dollar,” Ms Powers said.

In South America, Sao Paulo (62nd) and Rio de Janeiro (64th) were the most expensive places to live, but both slumped by more than 20 places each.

Asuncion in Paraguay was the cheapest of the 143 cities ranked for the fifth year in a row. It was joined by Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi (142nd), and Ecuador’s capital, Quito (141st), see the table below.

There had been significant changes since the 2006 rankings of the annual survey. These are primarily due to exchange rate fluctuations – in particular, the weakening of the US dollar and strengthening of the Euro.

Full story here.

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