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The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) called it last year, saying that 2021’s most expensive city to live in would come out of nowhere due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the economy.

The EIU conducts a Worldwide Cost of Living Survey bi-annually to determine the most expensive cities in the world.

Hong Kong, Singapore, and Osaka, which have previously held top spots on the list, have been knocked a few spots lower since last year.

An unlikely contender, Tel Aviv in Israel, is now the most expensive city in the world to live in, climbing from fifth to first place.

Israel’s currency, the shekel, is the main reason for the city’s new status, “buoyed against the dollar by Israel’s successful COVID-19 vaccine rollout,” said the EIU.

CNBC has more:

Israel had one of the fastest COVID-19 vaccination programs in the world. According to figures from Our World in Data, 62% of Israel’s population were fully-vaccinated as of Monday.

In early November, the Israeli shekel was up 4% against the U.S. dollar year-to-date, according to Reuters, but has since trimmed those gains.

The EIU looks at the prices of over 200 products and services in 173 cities to come up with the ranking and noticed that around a 10th of goods rose in cost in Tel Aviv over the year.

What’s more, they found the fastest pace of inflation in its index over the past five years:

…the inflation rate of the prices it tracked had risen by 3,5% year-on-year in local currency terms to September 2021, up from just 1,9% in 2020.

Basically, the rise in prices for commodities and other goods can be chalked up to the various economic obstacles that 2021 saw.

Think about the supply chain issues, fluctuations in currency exchange rates, as well as changes in consumer demand, probably because life as we know it has changed so dramatically.

As you can well guess, the cost of transport rose the most, “with the price of gasoline per litre up by 21% on average in 2021”, according to the study.

We feel that.

Anyway, here are the 10 most expensive cities to live in for 2021 in descending order:

• Tel Aviv, Israel
• Paris, France
• Singapore
• Zurich, Switzerland
• Hong Kong, China
• New York, U.S.
• Geneva, Switzerland
• Copenhagen, Denmark
• Los Angeles, U.S.
• Osaka, Japan

Better save up if you plan on moving to one of these spots.

[source:cnbc]