Karachi ranked as world's cheapest city: Study

A survey by the Mercer group ranked Tokyo as most expensive, study uses New York as a reference.

PARIS: Tokyo has regained the unenviable title of the world's most expensive city for expatriates while Pakistani port Karachi has ranked as the least expensive city, according to a survey by the Mercer group, with living costs around three times cheaper than in the Japanese capital.

The eurozone crisis has made many European cities cheaper according to the survey published on Tuesday.

The report, published annually to help companies assess compensation allowances for expatriate workers, compared the cost of over 200 items in 214 cities, using New York as a reference. The items on the list included housing, food and transport.

Tokyo pushed the oil-boom Angolan capital Luanda into second place to retake the top spot in the survey. Another Japanese city, Osaka, came third, the Russian capital Moscow in fourth, and Geneva fifth.

Cities in the eurozone slid in the rankings as the euro has slid against the US dollar during the debt crisis. Paris dropped 10 spots to 37th, Rome fell eight to 42nd, and Athens tumbled 24 to 77th.

London slipped from 18th in the table last year down to 25th place.

In contrast, appreciation against the US dollar helped push Australian and New Zealand cities up, with Adelaide jumping 19 spots to 27th.

Earlier in February Karachi had 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 city came in 131st out of 131 cities, maintaining last year’s position.