July 2012
Featured in this insight: Consumer goods & FMCG , Financial services, Retail, International
Survey gives insight in to the world's most expensive cities: Research has recently been carried out by Mercer in to the cost of living in various cities across the world. Their research looks at 214 cities across five continents and measures the comparative costs of 200 items including food, drink, entertainment, transport, clothes and property.
Tokyo has taken top place from Luanda as the most expensive city in the world to live in. Karachi in Pakistan is the cheapest place to live and is less than a third of the price of Tokyo. The top five most expensive cities are (in descending order) Tokyo, Luanda, Osaka, Moscow and Geneva.
In terms of the UK, London is, predictably, the most expensive city, coming in in 25th place and coming higher up the list than several other European capitals such as Paris (37th), Rome (42nd), Stockholm (46th) and Vienna (48th). London is also a more expensive place to live than New York which came in at 33rd.
Despite being fairly high up the list London is still considerably cheaper than Tokyo, especially for basic products – with milk, newspapers and a cup of coffee costing up to two and a half times as much in Tokyo as in London. Tokyo is, however, cheaper for certain products including petrol and soft drinks.
Some of the other UK cities featured on the list include Birmingham (133rd), Aberdeen (144th), Glasgow at (161st) and Belfast, the UK’s lowest ranked city, at 165th.
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