Blantyre among world’s cheapest cities

Malawi’s commercial city of Blantyre has been named as one of the world’s cheapest cities for expatriates.

This has been established by the 2017 Mercer’s Cost of Living Survey conducted in African, Asian, American and European cities.

Ranked 205, Blantyre is among the five cheapest cities all over the world, with Tunis being the cheapest. The world’s least expensive cities for expatriates also include Bishkek (208) in Kyrgyzstan, Skopje (206) in Macedonia and Windhoek (206) in Namibia.

This means that people who may come to Malawi can’t spend a lot compared to other cities across Africa and the world at large because cost of living is cheap.

According to the report, the costliest city in the world, driven by cost of goods and security, is Luanda, the capital of Angola.

Mercer has also established that quite a few African cities continue to rank high this year, reflecting high living costs and prices of goods for expatriate employees.

“Luanda (1) takes the top spot as the most expensive city for expatriates across Africa and globally despite its currency weakening against the US dollar. Luanda is followed by Victoria (14), Ndjamena (16), and Kinshasa (18). Tunis falls six spots to rank 209 as the least expensive city in the region and overall,” say a press release from Mercer.

Mercer’s 23rd annual Cost of Living Survey finds that Asian and European cities – particularly Hong Kong (2), Tokyo (3), Zurich (4), and Singapore (5) – top the list of most expensive cities for expatriates.

Other cities appearing in the top 10 of Mercer’s costliest cities for expatriates are Seoul (6), Geneva (7), Shanghai (, New York City (9), and Bern (10).

The figures for Mercer’s cost of living and rental accommodation costs comparisons are derived from a survey conducted in March 2017.

The survey includes over 400 cities across five continents and measures the comparative cost of more than 200 items in each city, including housing, transportation, food, clothing, household goods, and entertainment.

According to Mercer, it uses New York as a base for comparing cost of living in other cities and the cities are measured on how local currency of such countries (cities) is trading against United States Dollar on money market.

Government and major companies use data from this survey to protect the purchasing power of their employees when transferred abroad; rental accommodation costs data is used to assess local expatriate housing allowances.

Here is the top ten expensive cities in the world:
1-Luanda in Angola.
2-Hong Kong in Hong Kong.
3-Tokyo in Japan.
4-Zurich in Switzerland.
5- Singapore in Singapore.
6-Seoul in South Korea.
7- Geneva in Switzerland.
8-Shanghai in China.
9-New York City in United States.
10-Bern in Switzerland.