Most expensive cities in the world have been revealed
Topics: World News, Money
Ben Thompson
Featured Image Credit: Sorin Colac / Scott Wilson/ Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: World News, Money
It's no secret that living expenses have skyrocketed in recent years - anybody who is paying heating bills can attest to that.
But some cities are particularly expensive to live in and a recent list shows which ones are harshest on the bank accounts of their residents.
A list by Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the ten most expensive cities in the world to live in, revealing how Singapore and the Big Apple itself, New York, both tied in as the most expensive cities in the world.
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Not far behind them were Tel Aviv in Israel, Hong Kong in China and Los Angeles, US.
European cities appeared elsewhere on the pricey list, with two cities from Switzerland landing a spot - Zurich and Geneva in sixth and seven place respectively.
Other European cities like Paris, France and Copenhagen, Denmark were also featured.
Seemingly, the most affordable of the most expensive cities was from the land down under - Sydney was the only city from Australia to make the cut.
Nowhere has been spared from the economic hardships of the past year, as global prices increased by 8 percent in 2022.
Some cities were harder hit than others - Caracas in Venezuela has the world's highest inflation rate at an eye watering 132 percent.
Elsewhere, Istanbul in Turkey saw prices rise by 86 percent, as the capitals of Argentina and Iran (Buenos Aires and Tehran) saw them rise by 64 percent and 57 percent each.
The global city inflation rate of 8.1 percent was the highest even recorded by the EIU, which began tracking the prices of goods and services in 2002.
On the other end of the spectrum, the cheapest cities to live in were also revealed.
Damascus in Syria was deemed the world's cheapest city, with Tripoli, Karachi and Colombo also finding themselves in the lower ranks.
India alone has three cities in the bottom ten for affordability - Bangalore, Chennai and Ahmedabad.
Kyiv in Ukraine was too unsafe to be surveyed, but the war's impact in Russia is clearly illustrated in the figures.
Moscow and St Petersburg climbed the ranks for expense by 88 and 70 places each, as a result of western sanctions placed on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.
Inflation hit 17.1 percent in Russia's capital, with a similarly high increase of 19.4 percent being seen in St Petersburg.
Based on the data collected from 172 cities, the EIU estimates that price inflation will fall from 9.4 percent in 2022 to 6.5 percent this year.
However, the World Economic Forum points out that such a fall would come with a cost - a sharp fall in global economic growth.
Three quarters of economists surveyed for the report deemed it highly likely that a global recession would occur in 2023.