Minsk named one of the cheapest cities for expats globally

If you are thinking of relocating soon, you might want to consider the capital of Belarus, as Mercer’s annual Cost of Living Survey has found Minsk to be one of the cheapest locations for working abroad.

A new list of the most and least expensive cities in the world includes 209 cities across five continents.

The costliest city in the index, driven by cost of goods and security, is Luanda in Angola, knocking Hong Kong, which was first past year, into second place in 2017.

At the top of the list, Asian and European countries were found to have the most expensive cities, with Hong Kong followed by Tokyo, Zurich and Singapore respectively.

In its turn, Minsk has topped the list of the 10 least expensive locations. Belarusian capital ranks on 200 place.

Minsk is also cheaper than the neighboring capitals. For example, Riga is ranked 126, Kiev is 163 followed Vilnius on 167 place and Warsaw on 180.

We won’t recommend looking at Russia at all as its two principal cities both rank in Top 50 most expensive locations.

As a matter of fact, Moscow (14) and St. Petersburg (36) surged fifty-three and one hundred and sixteen places from last year respectively, due to the strong appreciation of the ruble against the US dollar and the cost of goods and services.

The rankings of the costliest and cheapest cities come from Mercer’s annual Cost of Living survey, designed to help multinational companies and governments determine compensation allowances for their expatriate employees.

New York is used as the base city and all cities are compared against it. Currency movements are measured against the US dollar.

The study measures the comparative cost of more than 200 items in each location, including housing, transportation, food, clothing, household goods, and entertainment.