Karachi, cheapest city in the world, again

Global report pegs Karachi as cheapest city, despite high inflation.


Web Desk February 15, 2012

Karachi has been ranked the cheapest city in the world, for the second year running.

According to a report published in The Wall Street Journal, Pakistan’s biggest city landed up at the bottom of the index for the Economist Intelligence Unit’s world-wide cost-of-living survey.

The over-populated port city came in 131st out of 131 cities, maintaining last year's position.

Other cities that made it to the bottom ten include Mumbai, New Delhi, Kathmandu and Dhaka.

Jon Copestake, editor of the survey, stated in the report that these cheap cities "have been cheap for a long time." "Even though local inflation is high, it's coming from a very low base, so it's only a slight rise in the cost-of-living index," he said.

Published twice a year, the survey tracks the prices of goods and services such as food, transportation, utilities, private schools and domestic help to calculate scores for each city, using New York as its base with a score of 100.

According to this year’s survey, Zurich is the world's most expensive city to live in.

COMMENTS (25)

Umair | 12 years ago | Reply

@Hadia Khan:

the survey is totally ridiculous if you are converting the expanses in dollars so kindly convert income of peoples in dollars too you would find-out the results ....... i think Cheapest cities are those where peoples are getting higher pay then their expanses .....

Hadia Khan | 12 years ago | Reply

People who are calling the survey ridiculous arguing that people here are over-working their already burned out bodies to make ends meet, they need to think critically before taking their frustration out on the survey. It's not the survey's fault if the governance over here is disastrous. Even for those people who work hard to make their ends meet, Karachi IS the cheapest city- be it for international travelers or locals, in dollar terms or rupees; because prices in other cities are higher anyway.

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