Hong Kong and Paris join Singapore to become world’s most expensive cities

Singapore, which have, for the sixth consecutive years dubbed as the world’s most expensive city has now been joined by the French capital, Paris and Hong Kong to become the world's three most expensive cities. The Economist Intelligence Unit's 2019 Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, released on Tuesday that Hong Kong moved up three places to join Singapore. Paris, which has been one of the top 10 since 2003, moved up this year from the second most-expensive last year. Paris, Singapore and Hong Kong are all 7 per cent more expensive to live than New York, the benchmark city.

The survey released by the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2019 Worldwide Cost of Living Survey compared the cost of 160 items, such as food, drink, transport, utility bills, and rent, in 133 cities and concluded that the top 10 most expensive cities are largely dominated by Asian and European cities.

Japan's Osaka moved up six positions, and now shares fifth place with Switzerland's Geneva while Los Angeles was named the 10th most-expensive city in the world, along with Israel's Tel Aviv.

Turkey's Istanbul became considerably less expensive, dropping 48 places to 120th on the list. Caracas, Venezuela's capital was at the very bottom of the list this year due to the experiencing political or economic disruption, a position previously occupied by Damascus in war-torn Syria.