Mumbai: The world’s cheapest city

Two Indian cities rank as the least expensive among global cities

Mumbai was labelled the world’s least expensive city in the Worldwide Cost of Living survey which was released on 4^th March.

The survey is conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) twice a year to determine the most expensive global cities in the world by placing New York City as the base and estimating the cost of living in US dollars. The survey compares 400 individual prices across 160 products and services that include food, drink, clothing, household supplies and personal care items, home rents, transport, utility bills, private schools, domestic help and recreational costs.

In the survey of 131 metropolitan cities around the world, Mumbai was ranked as the cheapest to live in with New Delhi ranking in as the third cheapest. Karachi and Kathmandu are listed as the second and fourth cheapest respectively.

The estimates from the survey show that buying a kilogram of bread in Mumbai would cost $ 0.91 while it would cost $ 1.05 in Delhi and $ 3.36 in Singapore. Similarly, one litre of unleaded petrol would cost $ 1.21 in Mumbai and $ 1.14 in New Delhi while it costs $ 2.50 in Paris.

At the top end of the table, Singapore was ranked as the world’s most expensive city because of sky-high living costs, currency appreciation and solid price inflation. Singapore’s transport costs are almost three times more than that of the base city of New York. It is also the most expensive city in the world to purchase clothing items. Tokyo was listed as the most expensive city in the world last year but has dropped down to the sixth position this year. Paris was declared to be the second most expensive city in the world.

The survey report hinted that Asian and European countries continue to be the most expensive metropolitan cities. However, the report also stated that the best value for money in Asia is in cities of the Indian subcontinent (defined as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka).