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The company calculates the list based on several factors, including the average price of household items such as milk and cooking oil, rent, utilities, public transportation and the strength of the local currency.
This is the third year in a row that Hong Kong has taken the dubious honor of being the most expensive city in the world on the ECA index. The index focuses specifically on foreign employees and expats in their rankings.
Asia wins the prize
Some regulators include the Middle East in Asia. In that case, Tel Aviv — which ranks sixth — also counts toward Asia’s total and would give it six out of ten places.
Asia also claims the honor of being the fastest rising city on the overall list. That would be Colombo, Sri Lanka’s main metropolis, which jumped 23 places from 162 to 149.
Lee Quane, ECA’s regional director for Asia, explained the rationale for mainland China’s growing presence on the index.
“Most mainland Chinese cities in our ranking have higher inflation than we are used to seeing, but they are still typically lower than elsewhere in Asia,” Quane said in a statement. “Therefore, the main reason for their rise in the rankings is the continued strength of the Chinese yuan against other major currencies.”

Hong Kong’s competitive and tight housing market contributed to the “most expensive” ranking.
Li Zhihua/China News Service/Getty Images
Lower in the list
So, which cities are ranked lower than in previous years?
Paris, which has topped the ECA list in the past, dropped out of the top 30. Madrid, Rome and Brussels all fell as well.
“Almost every major city in the eurozone saw a drop in the rankings this year as the euro underperformed the US dollar and the British pound over the past 12 months,” explains Quane.
The most expensive city in Europe is Geneva, Switzerland, which ranked third after Hong Kong and New York City. Switzerland uses the Swiss franc instead of the euro.
The coronavirus pandemic has, of course, played a role in global supply chains and other economic factors.
other rankings
ECA International is not the only company to rank cities in the world by economy.
Hong Kong was in fifth place, behind Zurich. In 2020, Hong Kong, Zurich and Paris all shared the title of number one.
Both lists use the prices of everyday items such as groceries and fuel to determine their rankings. However, the EIU pegs its numbers to the US dollar, so economies that do the same — like Hong Kong, for example — are more likely to rank highly.
Regardless, regardless of the order in which cities are on different indexes, it is clear that Asian, European and North American cities are much more expensive to live in than their counterparts in Africa and South America.

New York was the only North American city to finish in the top ten.
Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
The most expensive cities in the world
1. Hong Kong
2. New York
3. Geneva
4. London
5. Tokyo
6. Tel Aviv
7. Zurich
8. Shanghai
9. Guangzhou
10. Seoul
CNN’s Maureen O’Hare reported.
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