全世界哪个城市的生活成本最高?

Remi, you said the most expensive city is actually in an emerging economy?

Yeah, that's right, Polly. That would be Luanda, the capital of Angola. And in case you are wondering where exactly that is, it's right here, on the Atlantic coast of Africa. And you might not expect the capital of an emerging economy to take the title, but (it) turns out that in the past few years, Angola has actually become one of the fastest growing economies in the world. And that's thanks in part to its oil riches. This is the picture of an oil flare, just off the coast, the Angola coast, from a well there. And the country is a member of OPEC as well as one of Africa's biggest oil producers. And it's using that oil income, well, to fuel a postwar reconstruction boom. That's pulling in a lot of foreign workers, and that of course is driving up housing costs. Those foreigners also might demand food that needs to be imported again. We are talking at the higher costs there.

Now another expensive city in an emerging economy is the capital of Chad, N'Djamena. And it's the third most expensive city in this year's Mercer survey. Also rounding out the top three, we have to go to South America. And that is Sao Paolo, Brazil, it vaulted from number 21 last year to number 10 this year. And one other interesting theme, out of this year's Mercer survey, is that there has been a clear jump for Australia. (It) turns out that five of its major cities all vaulted higher, including Sydney and Melbourne. They moved up between 10 and 40 notches from last year.

Yeah, and housing in Australia is suddenly very expensive. Oh, Remi, so tell us, what's the top five most expensive cities in the world? You said Luanda is number one. What's number two?

Yeah, well, after Luanda, we have to head on over here to Asia. And Tokyo, Japan, comes in at number two. This here is a picture, of course, the famous Tokyo Tower. Tokyo held the same ranking last year. That is, of course, thanks to high housing costs among other things. Number three, as I mentioned, is the capital of Chad. But number four, is Moscow, Russia. It's keeping its ranking from last year also. Expensive housing for foreign workers played a big part in keeping Moscow near the top of the league. And rounding out the top five here, we have to go over to Geneva, Switzerland. As for the cheapest city to live in, well, that would be Karachi, Pakistan. Prices there are about one third cheaper than in Luanda.