Mumbai found most expensive city in India, 78 th in world: Mercer

NEW DELHI: Mumbai has been found to be the most expensive city for expatriates in India and is among top 20 in Asia, according to the latest Mercer 2021 Cost of Living City ranking. Mumbai is ranked 78 among 206 cities in the list, down 16 spots compared to last year’s rankings. Four Indian cities were featured in the list apart from Mumbai, namely New Delhi (117), Chennai (158), Bengaluru (170) and Kolkata (181).

Three of the five Indian cities have been ranked lower than the previous rankings. Mumbai dropped from 60 th to 78 th spot, New Delhi dropped 16 spots and Chennai has come down 15 spots. On the other hand, Bengaluru gained one spot and Kolkata has gained four spots in the list. The Cost of Living survey by Mercer helps to navigate the expatriate compensation
by inspecting various factors such as currency fluctuation, cost inflation for goods and services and instability in the accommodation prices. These features are necessary for determining the cost of compensation packages for employees working on international assignments.

New York, which is ranked 14, is decided as the base city and the currency fluctuations were compared with the US dollar. The ranking found Ashgabat, Turkmenistan to be the most expensive city in the world, which gained one spot from the last year’s rankings. Slip in rankings of the Indian cities was attributed to the decreased worth of the Indian rupee. The
top 10 most expensive cities featured some of the major global financial hubs such as Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, Zurich and Singapore.