Mercer Human Resource Consulting released its annual Cost of Living Survey yesterday. Taipei moved up a notch this year from the 29th most expensive to 28th most expensive of the 144 cities surveyed. The top 50 (last year’s rankings after the dash) for 2006 are:
[quote]1 - 4 MOSCOW Russia
2 - 5 SEOUL South Korea
3 - 1 TOKYO Japan
4 - 9 HONG KONG Hong Kong
5 - 3 LONDON United Kingdom
6 - 2 OSAKA Japan
7 - 6 GENEVA Switzerland
8 - 8 COPENHAGEN Denmark
9 - 7 ZURICH Switzerland
10 - 10 OSLO Norway
10 - 13 NEW YORK CITY United States
12 - 15 ST.PETERSBURG Russia
13 - 11 MILAN Italy
14 - 19 BEIJING China
15 - 22 ISTANBUL Turkey
15 - 12 PARIS France
17 - 34 SINGAPORE Singapore
18 - 13 DUBLIN Ireland
19 - 20 SYDNEY Australia
20 - 30 SHANGHAI China
21 - 17 ROME Italy
21 - 54 KIEV Ukraine
21 - 16 VIENNA Austria
24 - 39 TEL AVIV Israel
25 - 20 HELSINKI Finland
25 - 73 DUBAI United Arab Emirates
27 - 22 DOUALA Cameroon
28 - 29 TAIPEI Taiwan
29 - 44 LOS ANGELES United States
30 - 64 ABU DHABI United Arab Emirates
31 - 96 LAGOS Nigeria
32 - 52 BEIRUT Lebanon
32 - 50 HANOI Vietnam
34 - 119 SAO PAULO Brazil
34 - 50 SAN FRANCISCO United States
36 - 18 STOCKHOLM Sweden
37 - 56 HO CHI MINH CITY Vietnam
38 - 52 CHICAGO United States
39 - 57 MIAMI United States
40 - 124 RIO DE JANEIRO Brazil
41 - 123 LUSAKA Zambia
41 - 24 AMSTERDAM Netherlands
43 - 45 WHITE PLAINS United States
44 - 63 SHENZHEN China
45 - 26 ABIDJAN Cote d’Ivoire
45 - 36 DAKAR Senegal
47 - 82 TORONTO Canada
48 - 71 JAKARTA Indonesia
48 - 31 BRATISLAVA Slovak Republic
50 - 28 PRAGUE Czech Republic[/quote]
Isn’t this one of those surveys aimed at expat package types so when they try to figure the cost of living, they calculate, “OK, what’s the cost of living in Lagos/Jakarta/Moscow? How much does one pint of Guiness cost? $8 per pint. How much is rent in a expat compound? US$2500 per month. Clearly this third-world shithole is up there with Tokyo, London, and New York in terms of cost of living!”
I mean, how could any sane person say that living in San Francisco is cheaper than Taibei?
[quote=“alidarbac”]Isn’t this one of those surveys aimed at expat package types so when they try to figure the cost of living, they calculate, “OK, what’s the cost of living in Lagos/Jakarta/Moscow? How much does one pint of Guiness cost? $8 per pint. How much is rent in a expat compound? US$2500 per month. Clearly this third-world shithole is up there with Tokyo, London, and New York in terms of cost of living!”
I mean, how could any sane person say that living in San Francisco is cheaper than Taibei?[/quote]
Taipei is remarkably expensive when you price in such items as:
4 bedroom home close to office
international level schooling
fully insured & maintained vehicle
international style food (at home & out) for every meal
country club + gym for the family
booze
etc
These CoL guides are for placing expats who expect to maintain their “international” lifestyle, and not suffer any hardship wherever in the world they are placed by their company, or when investigating jobs in various locations.
Now if you are willing to adapt to local conditions, the CoL is somewhat lower.
Not that different from a Taiwanese person who moves to UK/Aus/USA/Canadia who expects to be eating shabu-shabu, stinky tofu, blackened innards, … every meal and having their kids in a Chinese school. It would be somewhat expensive.
I am astonished that Shanghai is considered that cheap. I might move back then.
Taipei should be moderately expensive for the expat, but not excessively so. A decent family apartment can be had for NT$70k, and eating out well is not ridiculous. Beer is comedy money, but that’s the same in HK, or Shangers.
The beer is cheap in Hanoi, but proper expat housing is very expensive. And so on.
I know of no way to live cheaply in Dublin or London. I’d have put HK further up the list, too.
