Mumbai, Delhi cheapest cities for expatriates: Survey

Indian cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore are some of the cheapest cities for expatriates to live in, according to a cost of living study done by Mercer, the real estate consultancy firm.

The study shows that Mumbai ranks 109 amongst 144 cities surveyed by Mercer. Delhi and Chennai rank 116th and 133rd respectively, while Bangalore ranks 137th in the list.

Mumbai is the costliest among the Indian cities with a weighted index of 66.8, while Bangalore is the cheapest with an index of 51.1.

But these cities are far below the world's most expensive cities like Tokyo, London, Moscow, Osaka and Hong Kong which take up the first five positions.

Tokyo takes the top slot with an index of 130.7. London moved up five places in the rank to take the second position with an index of 119. Asuncion in Paraguay is the least expensive city in the survey.

In Europe, Geneva, ranked at sixth position, is the next most expensive city after London. Meanwhile, Bucharest in Romania and Limassol are the most inexpensive European cities ranked at 125 and 95 respectively.

"We are likely to see cities in the new European Union accession countries rise in rankings as more investments are made in commercial development," said Marie- Laurence Sepede, senior researcher at Mercer.

In America, New York remains the costliest occupying 12th position while Pittsburg is the cheapest US city surveyed. "Cost of living within the US is more as compared to other destinations as there are variations in the accommodation expenses," Sepede added.

"There have been some dramatic movements in the rankings this year which are largely due to currency fluctuations, particularly in the dollar and euro," Sepede said. The gap between the world's most and least expensive cities has narrowed only marginally this year, by less than 2 points compared to 4 points last year and 15 points in 2002.

The survey covers 144 cities and measures the comparitive cost of over 200 items like food, alchohol, tobbaco, household supplies, health, clothing, entertainment, transportation etc. The data is uaually picked up by multinational companies to determine compensation allowances for their expatriate workers.