Hong Kong is the most expensive city for expatriates to live in, according to a cost of living survey published by global consultancy company Mercer, with placed Taipei 43rd, up 18 notches from the previous year.
Among the criteria considered are transportation costs, rent and restaurant prices, as well as entertainment and currency fluctuations, real estate and commodity costs. The survey assessed 209 cities around the world.
According to the Cost of Living Survey, after Hong Kong, Luanda, the Angolan capital, is the second most expensive city for expatriates.
Zurich and Singapore remain in third and fourth positions respectively, whereas Tokyo is in fifth, up six places from last year. Kinshasa — the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo — ranked sixth, moving up from 13th place.
Other cities appearing in the top 10 of Mercer’s costliest cities for expatriates are Shanghai (7), Geneva (8), N’Djamena, the capital of Chad (9), and Beijing (10).
The world’s least expensive cities for expatriates, according to Mercer’s survey, are Windhoek, the capital of Namibia (209), Cape Town (208) and Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan (207).
New York was placed 11th, Shenzhen 12th, Seoul 15th, London 17th and Guanzhou 18th.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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