Karachi among top 10 cheapest cities on weak prices

KARACHI: Karachi is still the top ten cheapest locations in the world owing to weak currency and local prices, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said on Tuesday.

Karachi ranked 130 in the ‘Worldwide Cost of Living 2017’ survey result. Last year, Pakistan’s biggest city ranked 127 out of 133 cities worldwide.  

Other top ten cheapest locations included Almaty (133), Lagos (132), Bangalore (131), Algiers (127), Chennai (127), Mumbai (127), Kiev (124), Bucharest (124) and New Delhi (124). 

“Last year deflation and devaluations were a prominent factor in determining the cost of living, with many cities falling down the ranking owing to currency weakness or falling local prices,” EIU said in the survey report. 

A bi-annual survey comparing more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services, including food, drink, clothing, household supplies and personal care items, home rents, transport, utility bills, private schools, domestic help and recreational costs. New York is used as base city with an index set at 100. The survey has been carried out for more than 30 years.

The EIU said Karachi, Algiers, Kiev and Lagos have faced well-documented economic, political, security and infrastructural challenges, and there is some correlation between the EIU’s cost of living ranking and its sister ranking the liveability survey. “Cheaper cities tend also to be less liveable.”

Singapore was found as the most expensive city in the world, followed by Hong Kong, Zurich, Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Geneva, Paris, New York and Copenhagen. 

The EIU said the global cost of living rose to 74 percent, up slightly from 73 percent last year. This remains significantly lower than five years ago when the average cost of living index across 132 cities was at an all-time high of 93.5 percent.