The latest UBS Prices and Earnings study has found that Tel Aviv is the costliest city in the Middle East when rents are excluded, but Dubai is the most expensive including rents. Dubai is the world's fourth most expensive city for renting with an average unfurnished three-room apartment rents for $3240 a month with only London ($3350), Hong Kong ($4220), and New York ($4320) more expensive.
The UBS Prices and Earnings study examines prices, wages and earners' purchasing power in 71 cities worldwide. The study, published roughly every three years since 1971, compiles over 68,000 data points reflecting economic events that have shaped the world since the last edition in 2012.
UBS added that workers in Zurich, Geneva and Luxembourg earn the highest gross wages. Tel Aviv workers earn the highest average gross wages in the Middle East, however workers in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, earn the highest net wages.
In Nairobi, Jakarta and Kiev, the lowest-ranked cities, workers receive only around 5% of average gross earnings in Zurich. Salaries go farthest in Luxembourg, Zurich and Geneva, where the net hourly wage buys the most goods and services from the standardized basket. Nairobi and Jakarta have the lowest purchasing power, affording just one-tenth as much as workers in Luxembourg. In Cairo, an iPhone 6 costs 353 hours' average earnings, longer than any other Middle Eastern city in the study.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 17, 2015
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