Survey finds cost of living for expats in Manila rising

THE COST of living in Metro Manila became relatively expensive for expatriate workers this year amid the strengthening peso and rising prices of commodities, a research and consultancy firm reported yesterday.

The rise in Manila’s ranking is due to the Philippine peso appreciating against the US dollar, along with price increases for rental accommodation, food and home services.

In the “Cost of Living Survey 2011,” Manila’s ranking went up by 23 notches to 134 from last year’s 157, out of 214 cities monitored, Mercer said in a report released on Tuesday.

“The rise in Manila’s ranking is due to its currency appreciating against the US dollar, along with price increases for rental accommodation, food and home services,” Puneet Swani, ASEAN business leader at Mercer’s Information Product Solutions, said in a news release.

The Philippine capital, however, was one of the least expensive cities in the Southeast Asia together with Hanoi (136th) and Ho Chi Minh (141th).

Singapore is now among the top 10 most expensive cities in the world for expats, at eighth place. The city-state is also Southeast Asia’s most expensive. It was trailed by Jakarta (69th) and Bangkok (88th).

In a survey released earlier, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) placed Manila four notches higher at 124 out of 140 cities in the “Worldwide Cost of Living 2011” report. The EIU cited exchange rate and price movements as the major reasons why a city’s cost of living goes up.

Mercer’s survey still placed Luanda, Angola as the world’s most expensive city for expats followed by Tokyo, Japan and N’Djamena, Chad.

Completing the 10 most expensive cities are: Moscow (4th), Geneva (5th), Osaka (6th), Zurich (7th), Singapore (8th), Hong Kong (9th) and Sao Paulo (10th).

Karachi in Pakistan, at 214th, remained the cheapest city for expatriates, with a living expense that is three times lower than that of the most expensive, Luanda.

Joining Karachi at the bottom were: Managua in Nicaragua (213th), La Paz in Bolivia (212th), Addis Ababa in Ethiopia (211th), Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan (210th), Islamabad in Pakistan (209th), Tegucigalpa in Honduras (208th), Tunis in Tunisia (207th), Ashkhabad in Turkmenistan (206th), and Nouakchott in Mauritania (205th).

The EIU ranking placed Tokyo as the most expensive city to live in and Karachi as the cheapest.

University of the Philippines economist Benjamin E. Diokno said that the survey showed that “the Philippines is a relatively low cost city [for] a dollar earner or retiree receiving social security in dollars or any of the major currencies.”

“But it does not deal with other factors such as peace and order, availability of educational facilities comparable to the rest of the world, cost of travel, availability of job opportunities and so on,” he pointed out.

Mr. Diokno also said that cost of living is just one of the factors that expatriates consider when choosing a workplace abroad.

The Mercer survey, which covered 214 cities across five continents, measures the comparative costs of over 200 items in each location, including housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment. It compared all cities against New York. — Karen Joyce Q. Ang, Businessworld