Dubai is ‘most expensive city’ in Middle East
With rent included, however, Seoul was ranked the 17th priciest city, behind Hong Kong and Tokyo. By contrast, the cost of living is lowest in certain Eastern European cities such as Kyiv, which is the cheapest city.
London really is as expensive as it feels, according to a new cost of living study. Zurich is at 92.6; Dublin is at 63.1 and Brussels is at 57.3. Dubai is the world’s fourth most expensive city for renting with an average unfurnished three-room apartment rents for $3240 a month with only London ($3350), Hong Kong ($4220), and New York ($4320) more expensive.
When it comes to wage levels, however, Tel Aviv is down in thirty-third place, meaning that salaries don’t keep up with what Tel Avivians have to pay for goods and services.
The country relies heavily on imported goods as it has become poorer and the depreciation of its currency has hit its economy hard.
Workers in Zurich, Geneva and Luxembourg earn the highest gross wages. Nairobi and Jakarta have the lowest purchasing power, affording just one-tenth as much as workers in Luxembourg.
To buy a 16 gigabyte iPhone 6, an average worker in Tel Aviv would need to put in 75.3 hours.
UBS said: “Prices of each product were an average from all survey participants and, where possible, were compared to the manufacturers’ official local retail price”. Net wage is calculated in the captions. Manama workers earned the highest average net wages in the Middle East.
The shortest working hours were found to be in Paris, while Manama had the most paid vacation. with an average of 34 days a year. “Switzerland would probably be shortly below New York City in terms of prices without the shock”. Services tend to be correlated to local wages, with the cost of the basket covering services such as haircuts, dry cleaning and internet fees. That’s nearly four times the cost of visiting Bucharest. And it is only 13th when it comes to earning potential. In that ranking, Tel Aviv came in 33rd place, with wages 52.8% lower than New York. “Eurozone cities plunged”, the report said, adding that the crisis in Ukraine had pushed Kyiv to the bottom of the price and wage charts.