The Covid-19 pandemic has caused historic disruption to international mobility and it has prompted many companies to re-evaluate how they will manage a mobile workforce after the pandemic or if they should have stints overseas now that virtual work has become the norm for many companies. A new list of the world’s most expensive cities could help companies decide and here is a surprise, it is not the usual suspects that top the list, but Ashgabat in Turkmenistan that is the world’s most expensive city. If you wondered what the attraction of Ashgabat is – it is described as a deserted white marble city with gold statues and manicured gardens, is on the old Silk Road and has vast natural oil and gas reserves. BizNews spoke to Vladimir Vrzhovski from Mercer, the company that published the 2021 Cost of Living Survey to find out the reason for Ashgabat’s top position and where South African cities ranked. – Linda van TilburgÂ
Vladimir Vrzhovski on the most expensive cities to live in:Â
Ashgabat and Beirut would be outliers on this list mostly because of how they report their offshore currency exchange. When we go down on the actual list of most expensive cities: Hong Kong, Tokyo, Zurich, Shanghai, Singapore and Geneva would remain the most expensive.
On the methodology used:Â
We need to set the baseline for methodology, how do we do this and how we calculate this. That would provide you with more context with why South Africa is where it is. We collect prices from about two hundred plus items every six months and we publish those items within a month of collection. Our collection is done every March to September where we have agents that go out with a list of products. If we look at two different products and one is an international famous brand (versus a local brand), we take the price of the international brand cause its a mostly recognised. We take at least three supermarkets from each city and we look at those prices and we average them. That’s all being done in local currency. We then convert everything to US dollars.
On where South African cities fit into the list:Â
South African cities are some of the cheapest cities out there. However, they got more expensive on this ranking compared to the last one due to the rand strengthening and inflation. Johannesburg has moved from 192 to 184 place and Cape Town has moved from 187 to 178. Both cities jumped eight and nine spots up respectively.
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