More than 20 euros for a bottle of wine corrientito , nearly 10 for a pack of snuff and three for a loaf of bread of a kilo. Average prices like these have crowned - convicted, rather - Singapore as the city most expensive in the world for the third consecutive year, according to a study by the Intelligence Unit of the prestigious magazine "The Economist".
In this wealthy city-state, financial and commercial Southeast Asian epicenter, the cost of living suffered last year , its biggest drop since the 70s, but remains at head so expensive it is to buy a car and drive in its small territory. In addition, public transport cost almost three times more than in New York and is near Seoul, one of the places where better to buy clothes or pay for electricity and water. Still, last year their differences were cut with their immediate followers: Zurich, Hong Kong and Geneva , to live on bread and wine also goes for more than 30 euros.
Fifth stands Paris , which has cheapened three places by the weakness of the Euro Zone, and then follows London, which has gone up five driven by the pull of the City and the constant influx of Asian, Arab and Russian fortunes.
Due to the strong dollar, New York and Los Angeles give a giant leap forward and last year occupy positions 22 and 27 are placed respectively in seventh and eighth place. The cradle of Hollywood and ties with Copenhagen and Seoul remain stable.
To the relief of the pocket of its inhabitants they fall of the ten top positions Tokyo and Osaka , who came to lead this list from two decades ago. Both have been dragged to the eleventh and fourteenth place by the stagnation of the Japanese economy and the depreciation of the yen. The weakness of the national currency, the Australian dollar has also relegated to Sydney and Melbourne to positions 20 and 21.
For the authors of the study, comparing how much worth 160 items in 133 cities, last year was marked by strong instability caused by the fall in oil prices and other commodities, which has weakened some coins and fueled inflation in some countries . This is the case of Russia, where the collapse of the ruble has reduced the cost of living up to 40 percent in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
On the opposite end, close the table Lusaka, Zambia, as the cheapest city in the world. He was preceded Bangalore and Mumbai, in India, and then Almaty in Kazakhstan, another country shaken by the collapse of oil. Next to Algiers include Karachi, Pakistan, Chennai and New Delhi, a little cheaper than Damascus despite the war in Syria and Caracas, where shortages, the black market and rampant inflation make it almost impossible to know how much something costs .
