Looking at 144 cities around the world, including five on the
Chinese mainland as well as Hong Kong and Taipei, the latest
cost-of-living survey has thrown up quite a few surprises.
While China observers may be left open mouthed by the ranking of
Beijing as more expensive to live than Shanghai, Taipei and
Singapore others around the world will be equally perplexed that
Moscow beat off the likes of Tokyo, London and Geneva to claim the
dubious number one spot.
Hong Kong, ranked fourth between third-place Tokyo and London in
fifth, was the most expensive Chinese city with Beijing at 14th.
Shanghai was six places below the capital in 20th, Taipei ranked
28th, Shenzhen 44th, Guangzhou 54th and Tianjin 128th -- one place below Bangkok.
Conducted by Mercer Human Resources Consulting, whose clients
use the survey to calculate cost of living allowances for staff
transferred internationally, the survey compared the prices of more
than 200 items covering housing, transport, food, clothing,
household goods and entertainment costs.
Many of the changes in position from last year's survey, which
listed Tokyo as the most expensive city, were a result of currency
fluctuations, said senior Mercer consultant Rebecca Powers.
The move to peg the renminbi against a basket of currencies
rather than just the US dollar was a major reason for cities on the
Chinese mainland climbing up the scale, she added. Shenzhen rose 19
places, Guangzhou 11, Shanghai 10, Beijing five and Tianjin was up
three.
However, this does not explain the apparent anomaly of Beijing
being judged more expensive than Shanghai for the second year
running. This appeared to come as a shock to everyone, except
Professor Zhang Jun from the Economics Department of Fudan
University.
"Actually I was not surprised by this result at all," he said.
"The cost of real estate in Beijing has been very high but the main
reason for Beijing being ranked as more expensive is because of its
social make-up.
"Shanghai has a lot of middle-income earners whereas Beijing has
a lot of high earners, a lot of people on low incomes and far fewer
people in the middle," he observed.
"As a result prices tend to go towards extremes. While cheap
things are very cheap, the high-end goods and services are very
expensive, certainly more expensive than in Shanghai," he
added.
With the survey looking at things like the rental of a luxury
two-bed apartment, a genuine music CD, a cup of coffee including
service charge and the price of an international daily newspaper
it's perhaps unsurprising that Beijing outranked its east coast
rival despite Shanghai's more affluent reputation.
Elsewhere in the world, Seoul, South Korea, was the most
expensive city in Asia, coming in second overall, Singapore ranked
17th, Frankfurt, the highest ranked German city, came in at 61st
and New York held onto its position as the most expensive US city
in 10th.
As a global leader for human resources and related financial
advice and services, Mercer Human Resources Consulting has more
than 15,700 employees working on behalf of clients in more than 190
cities and 41 countries worldwide.
(China Daily June 29, 2006)