Lagos is 2nd cheapest city in the world – The Economist Intelligence Unit

Even as many Nigerians are crying about the increase in the cost of living in Lagos, a new report of the Worldwide cost of Living 2017 published by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)says that it is the second cheapest city in the world.

The Worldwide cost of Living 2017 states that “although Nigeria has been attracting significant interest and investment in recent years, the fall in global oil prices has driven a collapse in the value of the Nigerian Naira, which pushed down relative pricing, despite strong local inflation.” “The relative cost of living in Lagos has more than halved since 2008, which might signal renewed interest from foreign investors, with price levels so low by international standards.”

It asserts that cheap does not always mean cheerful.

As Lagos and Almaty prove, an increasing number of locations are becoming cheaper because of the impact of political or economic disruption. Although the Indian subcontinent remains structurally cheap, instability is becoming an increasingly prominent factor in lowering the relative cost of living of a location. This means that there is a considerable element of risk in some of the world’s cheapest cities. Karachi, Algiers, Kiev and Lagos have faced well-documented economic, political, security and infrastructural challenges, and there is some correlation between The Economist Intelligence Unit’s cost of living ranking and its sister ranking, the liveability survey. Put simply, cheaper cities tend also to be less liveable.

Singapore retains its title as the world’s most expensive city for a fourth consecutive year. Not only has Singapore stayed top but Hong Kong remains second, closely followed by Zurich.

The Worldwide Cost of Living is a bi-annual (twice yearly) Economist Intelligence Unit survey that 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.

The survey itself is a purpose-built Internet tool designed to help human resources and finance managers calculate cost-of-living allowances and build compensation packages for expatriates and business travellers. The survey incorporates easy-to-understand comparative cost-of-living indices between cities. The survey allows for city-to-city comparisons, but for the purpose of this report all cities are compared with a base city of New York, which has an index set at 100. The survey has been carried out for more than 30 years.

Click here for the full report