Friday 17 January 2003 Expensive cities  | A survey, comparing prices in 150 major cities, has found that cities in Western Europe have become more expensive to live in since the full introduction of the euro currency a year ago. The report also noted a fall in living costs in cities where there are economic or political problems such as Buenos Aires in Argentina and Harare in Zimbabwe. Mark Gregory reports. |
 Listen to the story The findings are set out in the latest annual worldwide cost of living survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a business research organisation based in London. The information is intended to help big firms set salaries and other benefits for staff working away from their home country. As in last year's survey, two Japanese cities Tokyo and Osaka were found to be the most expensive places to live. The report also says that cities in the euro zone have become more expensive relative to other places since the introduction of euro notes and coins in January last year. For example Paris now has the tenth highest costs. It was in fourteenth place. Berlin has gone from fiftieth to thirty first place in the ranking. Those findings will fuel the widespread perception that businesses have exploited confusion over the new currency to push up their prices. But as in past years the highest costs in Europe are outside the eurozone. London, for example, is the seventh most expensive city in the world to live in. New York, which has the highest prices in America, is in 11th place in the global league.The biggest slide in relative costs has taken place in Buenos Aires. That partly reflects the slide of the Argentine currency, following the country's default on its debts. The cheapest major cities were found to be Tehran in Iran and Harare, capital of crisis ridden Zimbabwe. Listen to the words set out shown, displayed salaries monthly payments to workers benefits payments from an employer in addition to salary, for example housing costs the euro zone the countries which are using the euro currency relative to compared with, when you look at it next to something else ranking number order e.g. first, second, third perception view, how it is seen exploited used for their own advantage default not able to pay crisis-ridden with a lot of problems (if you attach ‘-ridden’ to certain words it means ‘having a lot of’e.g disease-ridden, debt-ridden)  Read more about this story | |  | | | SEARCH IN LEARNING ENGLISH | | | |
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