Revealed: World’s costliest, cheapest cities to live in

Singapore, New York and Tel Aviv are the world’s most expensive cities to live in this year, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s ‘Cost of Living’ report. Prices have risen by an average of 8.1 per cent in local-currency terms over the past year in the world’s biggest cities.

Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Zurich, Geneva, San Francisco, Paris, Copenhagen and Sydney are the also among the costliest cities, this year.

In 2022, the inflation rate recorded the highest increase in the past 20 years ago with petrol prices seeing the most rapid increases. Utility and food prices have also increased sharply, it added.

The survey, conducted between August 16 and September 16, tracked the prices of over 200 goods and services in 172 cities worldwide.

The biggest upward movers, however, are the Russian cities of Moscow and St Petersburg, which have shot up the rankings by 88 and 70 places, respectively.

Capital controls, import suppression and the conversion of European gas payments into roubles are supporting the value of the local currency. Meanwhile, local prices have been driven upward by Western sanctions imposed after the Russia-Ukraine war began in February, this year.

According to our survey of prices, inflation in Moscow is now 17.1 per cent year-on-year in local-currency terms, while in St Petersburg it has reached 19.4 per cent.

Overall, it forecasts that global consumer price inflation will fall from an average of 9.4 per cent this year to a still-high 6.5 per cent in 2023.