We all love our Kuala Lumpur city but in order to be fair towards those who are looking for other opportunities regarding the place to live in Asia, we will see what the life costs of other cities in Asia for the year 2017 are. There is always that one part of the population which is considering to move abroad for a short while or even permanently so those people will find this post useful for sure.
This June, Mercer published a cost of living survey that was also shared by Bloomberg and it puts 5 Asian countries in the list of top 10 most expensive cities in the world. The mentioned cities are Hong Kong (number 2), Tokyo (number 3), Singapore (number 5), Seoul (number 6) and Shanghai (number 8).
Bloomberg’s interpretation of Mercer’s cost living survey.
This data is very interesting as it says a lot about the sudden development of different Asian national economies in recent decades. Development of the country most of the times reflects on the development of its cities, thus the more prosperous economies sometimes might imply higher life expenses and costs.
For other costs of life we would recommend using the website Numbeo. A great place to compare living costs from around the world. We decided to compare Kuala Lumpur Main costs compared to Toyio and came up with few very interesting results:
- Consumer Prices in Tokyo are 104.21% higher than in Kuala Lumpur
- Consumer Prices Including Rent in Tokyo are 107.39% higher than in Kuala Lumpur
- Rent Prices in Tokyo are 116.59% higher than in Kuala Lumpur
- Restaurant Prices in Tokyo are 120.30% higher than in Kuala Lumpur
- Groceries Prices in Tokyo are 107.98% higher than in Kuala Lumpur
- Local Purchasing Power in Tokyo is 31.30% higher than in Kuala Lumpur
We made a few othes searches and compared the costs with Shanghai and Singapore and, as expected, the results from the Mercers’ survey corresponded very well with the results from Numbeo.
Next time you travel abroad, especially for a longer term, make sure you do your research of the living costs of the location you are moving to and see that it is within your budget so that you are not welcomed by and unpleasant and costly surprise.
