Dear old Dublin getting cheaper

News that Dublin is becoming a cheaper place to live has been welcomed by the city's business community and research showing that it is now the 34th most expensive city in the world will draw more tourists and multinational companies to the country, it has been claimed.

The Worldwide Cost of Living survey is published every six months by the Economist Intelligence Unit, which compares over 400 individual prices across 160 products and services.

The price measures include food, drink, clothing, household supplies and personal care items, rents, transport, utility bills, private schools, domestic help and recreational costs.

A year ago EIU researchers declared Dublin to be the 30th most expensive city in the world while at the height of the boom in 2006 it was found to be 16th most expensive place to live.

Tokyo has regained the title of the world's most expensive city, a ranking it first received in 1992 and has held on to for 17 of the past 23 years. Eight European cities were in the top 20 with the top 10 containing Oslo in fourth and last year's most expensive city, Zurich, in seventh place.

There is bad news for Irish people looking to move to either Sydney or Melbourne as both the Australian cities are to be found in the five most expensive cities in the world.

Also featured in the 2013 top 10 were Singapore, Paris, Caracas and Geneva.

No North American cities feature in the top 20, the EIU said the cost of living in New York had risen relative to other places in the United States. It shares 27th position as the most expensive US city with Los Angeles.

Mumbai in India and Karachi in Pakistan were the joint cheapest locations in the survey followed by New Delhi, the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu and Algerian

The news that Dublin is becoming a cheaper place to do business has been welcomed by the city’s Chamber of Commence and its chief executive Gina Quin said it was important to communicate falling prices to international tourists and investors.

“For the tourism sector, this demonstrates that Dublin is offering good value for money for tourists looking for ‘city breaks’ or long haul visits,” she said. “Ireland has seen a rise in the number of over overseas visitors to Ireland in the past year and this research coupled with the tourist VAT reduction should continue to help in the recovery of Ireland’s tourism sector.

She pointed out that multinational companies use surveys like this to “assess the competitiveness of international city regions against one another impacting on the decision to locate in Ireland or another country.”