ECONOMY City remains most expensive for expats ‘Yonne Mengping Lai yonnelai@scmp.com Hong Kong has retained its titleas the world’s most expensive city for expats to live in for the second yearrunning, with the firm behind the rankings attributing the result to rising inflation, Trailing Hong Kong in the cost-of-living survey, released by the research data firm ECA International yesterday, were Tunners-up Geneva, Tokyo and. New York, while Shanghai and Guangzhou were the highest- ranked mainland cities, comingin ninth and 10th, respectively. ECA calculated its own inflation rate based ona basket of everyday goods and services, finding that prices in Hong Kong had risen by 2.7 per cent year on year as of September, driven largely by fuel costs, Though that rate was lower than the global average of 3 per Be ke Cent, it was still higher than most of the other top 10 cities, giving Hong Kong the edge, said Lee ie, ECA's regional directorfor Asia, “The increase of Hong Kong's inflation rate showed the city’s economy is recovering gradually from politics and social unrest,” Quane added. According to the Census and Statistics Department, the city's official inflation rate stood at 1.7 ‘centyearon yearasofOctober. Pe With Seoul nthe No @ slog ‘Asian cities accounted for half of this year's top 10, up from just three last year. According to ECA, with the increasing global demand for Chinese products and the rela- tively high cost ofdomestic goods, top-tier mainland cities were ‘among some of the most expen- sivefor expatsto livein, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Beijing allose in this year's rank ings, cracking the top 15, Regional rival Singapore, ‘meanwhile, osetwo spots t0 12th place due to both inflation and rising rents, according to the survey. 7 Most cities within the E Union saw dropsin’ ankings folowing an instead Petodfortheeuoarisfelloutof the top 30, and Madrid, Brussels, and Romeall dropped as well. Despite Hong Kong taking the top spottwoyears inarow, Quane said it was difficult to predict ‘whether it could capture it for a third given the uncertain impacts ‘ofthe coronavirus pandemic, and the Omicron variant in particular, on shipping costs, the price of ‘certain goods and fluctuations in rents. The ECA survey has been conducted in March and September every year since 2005, ‘This year, the latest survey collected and analysed the dats, from September 2029 to September 2021, Scanned with CamScanner