Moscow named 3rd most expensive city in the world

News and photos from the Moscow News (14/06/2004)
 
Moscow ranks third on a list of the world’s most expensive cities, with Tokyo still on top and London moving up to second, according to a lifestyle survey, quoted by the Reuters news agency on Monday.

Tverskaya street / Photo: Vyacheslav Kochetkov Moscow News Picture Agency

Moscow was followed by Osaka in Japan and Hong Kong, the survey published by Mercer Human Resource Consulting found.

Asuncion in Paraguay was the least expensive of the 144 cities featured in the survey, for the second year running.

“There have been some dramatic movements in the rankings this year which are largely due to currency fluctuations,” said Marie-Laurence Sepede, senior researcher at Mercer.

The survey measures the comparative cost of 200 items in each city, including housing, food, clothing, entertainment, and transport.

Using New York as a base city with a nominal score of 100, Tokyo scored 130.7, London 119 and Asuncion just 36.5. New York was the costliest city in the United States, and 12th overall, followed by Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Geneva was the next most expensive place in Europe, ahead of Copenhagen and Zurich.