Published rating of world cities with the most expensive goods and services

Asia remains the most expensive region for the fourth year in a row, according to Julius Baer’s annual ranking of world cities in terms of the cost of goods and services for the rich. This time, the city with the most expensive goods and services was – for the first time – Singapore, which overtook last year’s leader – Shanghai.

In the annual ranking Swiss bank Julius Baer called Global Wealth and Lifestyle Singapore for the first time became the most expensive city in the world – the first in terms of the cost of goods and services for wealthy people. The city, which enjoys political stability and a favorable tax climate, was one of the first in Asia to significantly ease pandemic restrictions and receive a new influx of funds, including from wealthy people.

The rating takes into account the cost of a basket of 12 premium consumer goods and 8 services, which reflects the spending of the wealthy. The cost of goods and services is calculated and compared in US dollars. These goods include expensive jewelry, cars, wines, whiskeys, watches, women’s handbags and men’s suits, while services include private school education, an MBA degree, business class flights, health insurance, etc. includes 25 cities of the world.

As the authors of the ranking note, Asian cities in general remain the most expensive compared to cities in other regions. However, in Singapore, the trend of rising prices for services and goods turned out to be the most noticeable: over the year, this city moved immediately from 5th to 1st place. In Singapore, the demand for residential real estate is extremely high, and the cost of cars and health insurance is higher by 133% and 109%, respectively, than the global average.

The top 10 of the ranking also included Shanghai, pushed back from 1st place by Singapore, Hong Kong, London, New York, Monaco, Dubai, Taipei, Sao Paulo and Miami. South African Johannesburg is the last in the ranking. In general, as noted by Julius Baer, ​​over the past 12 months there has been a clear upward trend in prices and, accordingly, the cost of living.

The average cost of goods and services included in the basket increased over the year by 6% in US dollars and by 13% in national currencies.

Behind this is high global inflation, in particular, over the past period, raw materials, electricity, fuel, and staff recruitment have become more expensive. And, as the authors of the rating note, consumer demand has grown significantly, which was held back and accumulated over several years of the pandemic. Demand has grown the most over the past year and, accordingly, wines (by 17.23%), whiskey (16.15%), as well as hotel room rentals (15.25%), business class flights (10.13%), have risen in price and cars (9.26%). At the same time, residential real estate fell in price over the year – by 5.76% and bicycles – by 1.84%. Bicycles quickly rose in price during the pandemic, when there was a rush for them. Now the demand for them has stabilized.

The rating also analyzes the spending of wealthy people on certain goods and services by region. At the same time, as it turned out, over the past year in all five regions of the world, the rich spent the most money on visiting expensive restaurants. For example, in the Asia-Pacific region, 63% of respondents spent money on this, in the Middle East region – 74%, in Europe – 54%. The 2nd place in terms of spending in these three regions is hotel payments. In Latin America, this category of expenses includes the purchase of smartphones, and in North America, health insurance. In addition, an analysis of wealthy people’s travel habits over the past year showed that in North America and Europe, rich people prefer commercial air travel, while in the remaining three regions they prefer private cars.

Alena Miklashevskaya