Singapore has ranked as the 11th most expensive city in the world for expats, down one notch from last year’s 10th place, according to HR consultancy company Mercer.
However, Singapore has climbed one notch to fourth spot among the Asia-Pacific cities, in which for the first time has three cities in the top 10 list.
Tokyo remained on the top spot as the most expensive city in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by sister city Osaka and Hong Kong in third spot. Singapore and Seoul completed the top five list in the Asia-Pacific, coming in fourth and fifth place, respectively.
Cathy Loose, Asia-Pacific global mobility leader at Mercer’s information product solutions business, said that “cities in Asia, such as Tokyo and Osaka, continue to be the most expensive cities given the relatively strong yen against other major currencies such as the US dollar.”
She added that “other high-ranking cities such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing remain relatively the same in terms of overall cost-of-living ranking.”
Nathalie Constantin-Metral, senior researcher at Mercer, said that the reason why many Asian cities become more visible in the top ten list is mainly due to the rise in the residential property market in the region.
“At the end of 2009 and the beginning of 2010, residential property prices in many Asian countries rose as the economic environment began to stabilise and demand for good expat housing increased,” she said.
Among the 214 cities surveyed by Mercer across five continents, Tokyo was ranked second place. The number one spot went to Angola’s capital Luanda. Ndjamena, in the African country of Chad, got the third spot followed by Moscow and Geneva.
The Cost of Living survey conducted by Mercer was based on the comparative cost of over 200 items in each city, including housing, food, clothing, transport, household goods and entertainment.