Zurich is the world’s second most expensive city

Among the world’s most expensive places to fill a shopping cart: Zurich and Geneva Keystone

Only Singapore is more expensive than Zurich, finds an economic survey that compared the prices of more than 150 grocery items in 133 cities around the world. 

In fact Zurich tied with Paris for second place, followed by Hong Kong, Oslo, and Geneva – which tied with Seoul for sixth place. The ranking comes from the 2018 Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, published by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)External link on Thursday. 

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The EIU survey found that a stronger euro had pushed up the relative cost of living in all of the euro area cities surveyed, and that non-eurozone cities were the priciest. 

“Western European cities dominate the top of the ranking once more, which we have not observed in over a decade. The competition between Asian hubs like Singapore, Hong Kong and Seoul on the one hand and European destinations such as Paris, Zurich and Oslo on the other will be one to watch over the next survey cycle as well,” noted survey editor Roxana Slavcheva. 

Meanwhile, British and American cities became less expensive. And the least expensive cities were Damascus, Caracas and Almaty. As the survey pointed out, a growing number of locations were becoming cheaper on account of political or economic disruption.