Paris, Hong Kong and Singapore ranked most expensive cities in the world

Venezuela's Caracas ranked as the least expensive city

Paris, Hong Kong and Singapore have been ranked as world's most expensive cities in the annual Economist Intelligence Unit survey.

According to BBC News, it is the first time the three cities have shared the top spot in the 30-year history of the survey, which compares prices in 133 cities globally.

Paris - which was ranked second most expensive last year - is the only eurozone city in the top ten.

For the Survey, New York was used as a benchmark. The survey was based on a comparison of the cost of common items, such as bread, in 133 cities with their cost in New York.



According to Report author Roxana Slavcheva, Paris had been among the top ten most expensive cities since 2003 and was "extremely expensive" to live in.

"Only alcohol, transport and tobacco offer value for money compared with other European cities," she said.

"European cities tend to have the highest costs in the household, personal care, recreation and entertainment categories-with Paris being a good representative in these categories—perhaps reflecting a greater premium on discretionary spending," Slavcheva said.



Many changes were witnessed in this year's ranking due to inflation and volatile currency fluctuations. Places like Argentina, Brazil, Turkey and Venezuela all saw a sharp fall in their cost of living ranking.

The country ranked as the least expensive in this year's survey is Venezuela's Caracas, where a new currency was launched last year as inflation almost reached 1,000,000%.

Syria's Damascus was ranked the world's second cheapest city.

According to The Economist Intelligence Unit, a "growing number of locations" were becoming cheaper due to the impact of political or economic disruption.