The capital of Angola has overtaken Hong Kong to become the costliest city or territory in the world for expats, Mercer’s annual survey said yesterday.
Dethroned last year by Hong Kong, Luanda regained the dubious honor despite the depreciation of the Angolan kwanza against the US dollar, according to the survey.
While Hong Kong is bounced back down to second place it remains the most expensive Asian territory or city “because of its currency’s link to the [US] dollar, a factor which makes local housing more expensive,” the report said.
This year Tokyo completes the podium, moving up from last year’s fifth place because of the yen’s appreciation and “the dynamism of the housing market” in Japan, according to the report.
The survey compares the cost of more than 200 items in more than 200 cities and territories, including housing, food, transport and entertainment.
It takes New York — in ninth place this year — as its base for comparison and measures currency movements against the US dollar.
The study is closely followed by governments and international businesses which take the rankings into account when they calculate the costs of sending their employees abroad.
Some Russian cities lept up the table in the new survey, with Moscow reaching 14th place from 53rd last year and Saint Petersburg leaping to 36th from 116th “under the twin effects of the rise in the ruble and the cost of goods and services,” the report said.
Main cities in Australia, Brazil and India also marched up the expat costs list.
A lot of European cities were on the way down, particularly in Britain due to the weakness of the British pound. Paris, Vienna and Rome also became less expensive for the expat purse.
At the bottom of the table were Skopje, Bishkek and Tunis.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
Taipei is today suspending its US$2.5 trillion stock market as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed-income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Yesterday, schools and offices were closed in several cities and counties in southern and eastern Taiwan, including in the key industrial port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwan, which started canceling flights, ship sailings and some train services earlier this week, has wind and rain advisories in place for much of the island. It regularly experiences typhoons, and in July shut offices and schools as
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
RSS