Mercer's Cost of Living Survey 2016 released

Mercer's Cost of Living Survey 2016 was released on 22 June 2016. Asia dominates the top 5 of 2016 Cost of Living Rankings, with Hong Kong bagging the No. 1 spot, pushing Luanda, Angola to 2nd.

As per the Mercer’s 22nd annual Cost of Living Survey, top factors contributing to cost of expatriate packages for employees on international assignments are currency fluctuations, cost inflation for goods and services, and instability of accommodation prices.

Key highlights of the survey
• The survey includes more than 375 cities throughout the world. The ranking for 2016 includes 209 cities across five continents.
• It measures the comparative cost of more than 200 items in each location, including housing, transportation, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment.
• New York City is used as the base city for all comparisons and currency movements are measured against the US dollar.
• Kinshasa, which is ranked sixth in the survey, appears for the first time in the top 10 cities.

Five Indian cities were also ranked in the list. They are:
• Mumbai – Rank 82
• New Delhi – Rank 130
• Chennai – Rank 158
• Kolkata – 194
• Bangalore – Rank 180

Top 10 countries in the list are:
Rank City Country
1 Hong Kong China
2 Luanda Angola
3 Zurich Switzerland
4 Singapore Singapore
5 Tokyo Japan
6 Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo
7 Shanghai China
8 Geneva Switzerland
9 N'Djamena Chad
10 Beijing China