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SINGAPORE has jumped three spots to become the 10th most expensive city in the world for expatriates, according to Mercer's latest cost of living survey.
Tokyo stole the top spot from Moscow because the yen has strengthened over the survey period - March last year to this March - while London dropped to 16th from third place due to the weakening of the pound, Mercer said.
Johannesburg is at the bottom of the list of 143 cities, and is roughly one-third as costly as Tokyo. It replaced Asuncion in Paraguay, the least expensive city last year.
Mercer, the human resource consulting arm of Marsh & McLennan - an American professional services and insurance brokerage firm - noted on its website that the British pound has lost more than 26 per cent against the US dollar over the survey period.
The 'significant reshuffle of cities' can be explained more by 'important currency fluctuations and less so by price movements', it added.
However, Singapore's rise is probably not due to changes in exchange rate, because during the survey period, the Singapore dollar did not strengthen against the US dollar.
The survey data actually suggested that the country became a little cheaper, but rival cities had become even less expensive.
Each city was given a numerical score, based on how much certain goods or services cost.
The prices of more than 200 items such as food, housing, transport and entertainment were recorded.
Mercer used New York City, where it is based, as a benchmark. The company assigned it a score of 100, and calculated the scores of the other 142 cities relative to that.
Tokyo and Johannesburg scored 143.7 and 49.6 points respectively, while Singapore reached 98, down from last year's score of 111.3, reflecting that the country has become relatively less expensive.
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