Hong Kong named as the world's most expensive city for foreigners

Hong Kong has been named as the world's most expensive city for expatriates by Mercer's global cost of living survey released Tuesday, largely due to high house prices.

For the second year in a row Hong Kong has taken out the top spot in the survey, which measures the cost of 200 items in 209 cities, including housing, transportation, food, clothing, household goods, and entertainment.

In second place was Turkmenistan's capital city Ashgabat, which has been experiencing hyper-inflation and high costs of importing goods and raw materials.

Tokyo was in third place, followed by Zurich in Switzerland, which has two other cities in the top ten most expensive- Bern (8) and Geneva (9).

Singapore was in fifth place, down two places from the previous year's survey, and New York in sixth.

Asia and Africa

The list reflects that cities in Asia and Africa are becoming more expensive for expatriates.

Chinese cities Shanghai and Beijing were the 7th and 10th most expensive, meaning Asian cities made up six of the top 10.

The most expensive city in Africa, Ndjamena in Chad, sat one place ahead of San Francisco (16) and Lagos in Nigeria (17) was one place above London.

Mercer's survey is designed to inform companies how much to pay their overseas employees, measuring the cost of living for expatriates, which may differ from the average cost of living for other residents.