If you live in Lagos, then you’re in the 13th most expensive city in the world

The world’s largest human resource consulting firm, Mercer, has described Lagos State as the 13th most expensive city in the world.

Mercer further placed African, Asian, and European cities as continents whose cities dominated the 2017 list of most expensive locations for working abroad.

These are contained in its 23rd Cost of Living Survey, recently released, which it said seeks to assists multinational companies and governments determine compensation allowances for their expatriate employees.

Nigeria Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, is ranked 20th in 2016, according to the survey.

Ranking first, is the capital city of Angola, Luanda, which was previously second but overtook Hong Kong in the last ranking as the world’s most expensive city.

The survey named cost of goods and security as factors the survey hinged its criteria on in placing Luanda as the most expensive city.

The survey explained that other African cities that ranked high was based on a reflection of high living costs and prices of goods for expatriate employees.

The African countries include, Victoria, Seychelles in the 14th position, N’djamena, Chad in the 16th position and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo ranked 18th.

African cities listed as least expensive are, Gaborone, Botswana in the 196th position; Cape Town, South Africa ranking 199th and Blantyre, Malawi ranking 205th.

Windhoek, Namibia ranked 206 while Tunis, Tunisia ranked 209 and was found to be the least expensive country globally.

Three cities of Zurich, Geneva and Bern which ranked fourth, seventh and 10th respectively are Europe’s top 10 in the list of most expensive cities for expatriates.

While Moscow ranked 14th and London ranked 30th position, the German cities of Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin dropped significantly ranking 98, 117 and 120 respectively.

Asia recorded five of the top 10 expensive cities with Hong Kong ranking second and the most expensive city in the region because of its currency pegged to the US dollar, which drove up the cost of accommodations locally.

The other four are Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul and Shanghai which ranked third, fifth, sixth and eighth respectively.

According to Nathalie Constantin-Métral, Principal at Mercer, who handled the compilation of the survey ranking, the majority of Chinese cities fell in the ranking owing to the weakening of the Chinese yuan against the U.S. dollar.

In the survey, India Mumbai ranked 57, moving up 25 places, the reason for that was attributed to its rapid economic growth, inflation on the goods and services basket and a stable currency against the U.S. Dollar.

New Delhi and Chennai ranked 99 and 135 respectively.

Tel Aviv ranked 17 in the Middle East, and remained the most expensive city in the region for expatriates followed by Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh ranking 20, 23 and 52 respectively.

Jeddah ranked 117, Muscat ranked 92 and Doha ranked 81 and are among the least expensive cities in the region.

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The survey also discovered that cities in the U.S. were the most expensive locations in the Americas, with New York City ranking ninth as the costliest city; San Francisco 22nd and Los Angeles 24th.

“Overall, U.S. cities either remained stable in the ranking or have slightly increased due to the movement of the U.S. dollar against the majority of currencies worldwide, Ms. Constantin-Métral said.

Ranking 107 was the Canadian city of Vancouver overtaking Toronto which ranked 119, to become the most expensive Canadian city in the ranking. Ottawa was found to be the least expensive city in Canada ranking 152.

On the Canadian case, Constantin-Métral explained, “The Canadian dollar has appreciated in value triggering the major jumps in this year’s ranking.”

The 23rd Mercer’s annual Cost of Living Survey discovered that factors like instability of housing markets and inflation for goods and services contribute to the overall cost of doing business in today’s global environment.

 

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