Karachi declared ‘cheapest city in the world’ for second year in a row: report

Karachi has been recognised as the cheapest city in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), second year in a row, BBC reports.

EIU’s annual survey on the worldwide cost of living had also declared Karachi as the cheapest city last year.

The Worldwide Cost of Living is a bi-annual (twice yearly) Economist Intelligence Unit survey that comprises 133 cities worldwide and uses New York as a base. It  compares more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services. These include food, drink, clothing, household supplies and personal care items, home rents, transport, utility bills, private schools, domestic help and recreational costs.

Bangalore, Caracas, Mumbai and Chennai are also among the five cheapest cities on the EIU list.

With four cities from South Asia in the list, the EIU report added that a cheap and plentiful supply of goods into cities from rural producers with short supply chains, as well as government subsidies on some products, has kept prices down, especially by Western standards.

It further said that the Indian subcontinent may be structurally cheap, but an increasing number of locations are also becoming cheaper because of the impact of significant political or economic disruption. This also means that there is a considerable element of risk in some of world’s cheapest cities. Karachi, Kathmandu, Algiers, Caracas and Tehran have faced well-documented economic, political and security challenges.

The five most expensive cities in the world remained unchanged this year, with Singapore topping the list. It was followed by Paris, Oslo, Zurich and Sydney.

Singapore has retained its position as the world’s most expensive city and the other cities top four most expensive cities in the world remain unchanged from a year earlier and include, in descending order, Paris, Oslo, Zurich and Sydney, adds BBC.