Singapore named world’s fourth most expensive location for expats

Hong Kong clinched the top spot.

Singapore retained its spot as the world’s fourth most expensive location for expatriates, according to Mercer’s 2016 Cost of Living survey.

Singapore is the second-costliest city in Asia, second only to top-seeded Hong Kong. Hong Kong also topped the charts globally, pushing Luanda in Angola to second place.

Zurich came in third while Tokyo is fifth, up six places from last year.

The strengthening of the Japanese yen pushed Japanese cities up in the ranking. Meanwhile, Chinese cities fell in the ranking due to the weakening of the Chinese yuan against the US dollar.

Mumbai (82) is India’s most expensive city, followed by New Delhi (130) and Chennai (158). Kolkata (194) and Bangalore (180) are the least expensive Indian cities ranked. Elsewhere in Asia, Bangkok (74), Kuala Lumpur (151) and Hanoi (106) plummeted twenty-nine, thirty-eight, and twenty places, respectively. Baku (172) had the most drastic fall in the ranking, plummeting more than one hundred places. The city of Ashkhabad in Turkmenistan climbed sixty-one spots to rank 66 globally.