SINGAPORE: Singapore has retained the title of the world’s most expensive city for the third year in a row, despite experiencing its longest spell of declining consumer prices since the 1970s.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in its latest worldwide cost of living survey ranked Singapore at the costliest ahead of Zurich, Hong Kong, Geneva and Paris, BBC News reported on Thursday (March 10).
London was sixth and New York seventh on the list that compares the cost of a basket of more than 160 items – from food, toiletries and clothing to domestic help, transport and utility bills – across 133 cities.
The cheapest cities to live in were Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, followed by Bangalore and Mumbai in India, the EIU said.
Singapore was still the priciest city even though its relative costs had come down by 10 per cent from the 2015 survey, the BBC reported.
The EIU also noted that costs across the world have been highly volatile because of the rising US dollar, currency devaluations and movements, and falling oil and commodity prices, the BBC reported.
This has caused big shifts in the rankings of cities.
Thus, a weakened Aussie dollar pushed Sydney and Melbourne out of the top 10, down to 20th and 21st place respectively, Australian news website SBS reported on Thursday.
“In nearly 17 years of working on this survey I can’t recall a year as volatile as 2015,” Mr Jon Copestake, EIU survey editor, was quoted by the BBC as saying.
“Falling commodity prices have created deflationary pressures in some countries, but in others currency weakness caused by these falls has led to spiralling inflation,” he added
