Zurich and Paris top at costliest-living list

Paris and Zurich have joined Hong Kong as this year’s costliest cities worldwide, while Singapore and Osaka have slipped from their joint-top spot after the coronavirus pandemic weakened the dollar, a survey published on Wednesday showed.

The pandemic’s effect on the dollar was the largest factor for changes this year, the Economist Intelligence Unit showed in its Worldwide Cost of Living 2020 report.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the US dollar to weaken while western European and north Asian currencies have strengthened against it, which in turn has shifted prices for goods and services,” said Upasana Dutt, head of worldwide cost of living at The EIU.

Upasana added that the movement of Paris and Zurich to be at the top was spurred on by the rise of the euro and Swiss franc against the US dollar.

Also, the report found that New York, the city the index is benchmarked against, and Los Angeles both fell in the rankings.

The Big Apple fell one spot to joint-seventh with Geneva, and Los Angeles dropped to ninth, equal with Copenhagen.