By Romesh Navaratnarajah: Singapore has slipped from sixth to eighth spot on the list of Asia's most expensive locations for international assignees, according to research done by ECA International.
Beijing overtook Singapore clinching fifth spot from eighth last year while Shanghai rose from ninth to sixth place. However, Singapore still leads Hong Kong.
Once again, Tokyo took top spot for the most expensive location in Asia and globally. Interestingly, Japanese cities took up the top four spots on the list.
Meanwhile, Beijing was a notable stand-out as the 20th most expensive city in the world, a significant improvement from 48th place last year.
Lee Quane, Regional Director, Asia for ECA International, said: "The rate of increase in the prices of goods and services commonly purchased by assignees in China has gone up sharply in the past year."
"In addition, the Renminbi has strengthened against major currencies. Together, these two factors have contributed to pushing up the cost of living in Chinese cities for international assignees significantly. For many companies the cost of posting employees to China has risen significantly compared to those posting employees to Singapore, Hong Kong and other locations in the region," he added.
Despite a fall in the Asian ranking, Singapore still managed to rise globally. From 38th position last year, the city-state is now ranked 32nd. In fact, its ranking is higher than Paris and Berlin which placed 34th and 47th respectively.
"Prices of goods and services in our basket of items commonly bought by international assignees in Singapore have increased almost six percent on average in the last twelve months," said Quane.
"This is almost double the rate at which they rose a year ago. This together with the fact that over the same period the Singapore dollar has remained strong against other major currencies has contributed to Singapore's continued rise up the global ranking." Related Stories: Singapore now has more rich people than Hong Kong
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