The world’s costliest cities for 2022

June 8, 2022

(CNN) — World mobility firm ECA Worldwide has launched its annual checklist of the world’s costliest cities to stay in, and as soon as once more Hong Kong has landed on the prime of the checklist.

The corporate calculates the checklist based mostly on a number of elements, together with the common worth of family staples like milk and cooking oil, lease, utilities, public transit and the energy of the native foreign money.

That is the third 12 months in a row that Hong Kong has claimed the doubtful honor of being the world’s priciest metropolis on the ECA index. The index particularly focuses on international staff and expats of their rankings.

Asia takes the prize

It’s protected to name Asia the most costly continent, with 5 cities — Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Seoul — touchdown within the prime 10.

Some regulators embody the Center East in Asia. In that case, Tel Aviv — which is in sixth place — additionally counts towards Asia’s whole and would give it six out of 10 spots.

Asia additionally claims the dignity of being house to the fastest-rising metropolis on the general checklist. That may be Colombo, Sri Lanka’s most important metropolis, which jumped 23 locations from 162 to 149.

Lee Quane, ECA’s regional director for Asia, defined the reasoning for mainland China’s rising presence on the index.

“Nearly all of the mainland Chinese language cities in our rankings have larger charges of inflation than we’re used to seeing, however they’re nonetheless usually decrease than elsewhere in Asia,” Quane stated in an announcement. “Due to this fact, the principle motive for his or her rise within the rankings has been the continued energy of the Chinese language yuan in opposition to different main currencies.”

Hong Kong’s aggressive and cramped housing market contributed to its “costliest” rating.

Li Zhihua/China Information Service/Getty Pictures

Decrease down the checklist

So, which cities are decrease ranked than in earlier years?

Paris, which has topped the ECA checklist prior to now, dropped out of the highest 30. Madrid, Rome and Brussels all fell as effectively.

“Practically each main Eurozone metropolis noticed a drop within the rankings this 12 months because the euro carried out worse within the final 12 months than the US greenback and British pound,” Quane explains.

Exterior elements like politics and worldwide conflicts may play a job. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the accompanying sanctions positioned by many international locations meant that Moscow got here in 62nd place and St Petersburg landed in 147th.

Europe’s costliest metropolis is Geneva, Switzerland, which was in third place after Hong Kong and New York Metropolis. Switzerland makes use of the Swiss franc as an alternative of the euro.

The coronavirus pandemic has, after all, performed a job in world provide chains and different financial elements.

Different rankings

ECA Worldwide is not the one firm that ranks the world’s cities based mostly on economics.

London-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) releases its Worldwide Price of Residing index each December. In 2021, Tel Aviv took the prize for costliest place to stay, with Paris and Singapore tying for second.

Hong Kong was within the fifth spot, behind Zurich. In 2020, Hong Kong, Zurich and Paris all shared the designation of primary.

Each lists use the costs of on a regular basis objects like groceries and gas to find out their rankings. Nonetheless, EIU ties its figures to the US greenback, so economies that do the identical factor — like Hong Kong, for one — usually tend to rank extremely.

Both manner, whatever the order cities are listed on totally different indexes, it is clear that Asian, European and North American cities are far dearer to stay in than their counterparts in Africa and South America.