ABU DHABI 20 March 2019: The lower cost of living – both in terms of home purchase prices and rentals – have seemingly kept both Abu Dhabi and Dubai out of the top league of the world’s most expensive cities.
However, the introduction of Value Added Tax and the various stimulus packages – especially the Dh50 billion announced by the capital – seems to be having some impact as the city has run up the Worldwide Cost of Living Index from EIU by 13 places — to just break into the top-50 at the 49th rank.
Dubai moved up 8 places, but was still consigned to 58th rank globally.
Among other biggest movers up from the Gulf were Oman [up 15 places to rank 92nd] and Saudi Arabia [up 12 places to 105th rank].
Of course, the strength of the dollar [to which the UAE dirham is fixed] and the higher price of oil have also had their fair share in boosting prices in the Abu Dhabi [and to a lesser extent in Dubai] – but thankfully not as high as Singapore.
