Singapore - World's Most Expensive City
Singapore is the world's most expensive city - for the second time in a row. The British magazine The Economist compared over 130 of the world's major cities. Paris, Oslo and Zurich follow the Southeast Asian metropolis as the most expensive cities in the world.
The study uses New York as the basis for calculating and comparing the cost of living. It shows that Singapore is more expensive than any other major world cities when it comes to shopping, transportation and food. The report states that owning a car in Singapore is nearly unaffordable. Clothes cost twice as much as in New York. The city is experiencing rising housing costs as more and more foreigners choose to live there.
Singapore is also a financial and banking center and is becoming the Asian headquarters of many global companies. Despite such high prices Singapore is still a major travel destination. In addition, the city-state celebrates its 50th birthday this year.
Well-known cities have disappeared from the exclusive list, including Tokyo, partly because of the declining value of the yen. Paris remains the most expensive European city, despite the weak euro.
At the end of the list Karachi, Pakistan is currently the world's cheapest city. Among the least expensive cities are three from India: Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai.
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Words
- basis = here: from where something starts
- calculate = here: find out how much something costs
- celebrate = to organize a special event
- compare = to find out how two or more things are different from each other
- currently = at the moment
- decline = go down
- despite = even though
- destination = place that a person goes to
- disappear = go away
- exclusive = here: expensive
- experience = go through
- follow = come after
- foreigner = person from another country
- global = worldwide
- headquarters = main building or office of a company
- in addition = also
- in a row = happening a number of times, one after the other
- including = also
- major = very important
- metropolis = city
- remain = stay
- rise = go up
- state = to say officially
- study = report
- transportation = system of moving people and goods from one place to another
- unaffordable = not have enough money to pay for something
- value = what something is worth