According to Mercer’s 2021 Cost of Living City Rankings – Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan has become the world’s most expensive city for foreign workers (Expatriates) followed by Hong Kong, Hong Kong (SAR) & Beirut, Lebanon. Mumbai, Maharashtra was ranked at 78, making it India’s most expensive city for expatriates (a fall of 18 places compared to 60th rank in 2020 Mercer Survey).
- The rankings are based on Mercer’s 27th annual Cost of Living Survey.
- Around 209 cities across 5 continents have been ranked in the survey. New York City, which was ranked 14th on the list, was used as the base city for the survey.
| City | Global Rank |
|---|---|
| Mumbai, Maharashtra | 78 |
| Ashgabat, Turkmenistan | 1 |
| Hong Kong, Hong Kong (SAR) | 2 |
| Beirut, Lebanon | 3 |
Mercer Survey
- It is a Bi-Annual survey that evaluates more than 200 goods and services including housing, transportation, food, clothing, household goods, and entertainment.
- It highlights essential factors like currency fluctuations, cost inflation and accommodation price instability – to determine the cost of expatriate packages.
Key Points
i.Mumbai’s drop in rankings is due to weak performance of Indian rupee in comparison with other cities in the rankings.
ii.Other Indian cities on the list are New Delhi (117), Chennai, Tamil Nadu (158), Bengaluru, Karnataka (170), and Kolkata, West Bengal (181).
iii.World’s Least Expensive cities for expatriates are Tbilisi, Georgia (207); Lusaka, Zambia (208); Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (209).
Recent Related News:
June 9, 2021, According to the Global Liveability Index 2021 released by the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU), New Zealand’s Auckland has been named as the World’s Most Liveable City.
About Mercer
President & CEO – Martine Ferland
Headquarters – New York, USA
