Business News of Monday, 3 July 2017
Source: citifmonline.com
2017-07-03
File photo
A company dedicated to helping people move abroad has ranked Ghana as the African nation with the highest cost of living.
The company, called MoveHub, based its calculations on the price of groceries, transport, bills, restaurants and renting a home. The calculation was then placed on an index, which used New York as the benchmark.
After giving New York a score of 100, MoveHub ranked other countries in relation to New York.
A country that scored higher than 100 is more expensive than New York, while scoring below signals that it is cheaper.
Ghana ranked number 20 on the list of 21 countries. The last five countries on the list, including Ghana, were Italy (which shared the 20th rank with Ghana), Israel, Kuwait, Japan, and New Zealand.
The top five countries were (by rank) Bermuda, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Iceland, and Singapore.
Though New York was used as a barometer, the USA as a country ranked number 15 because it is considerably less expensive to live in areas outside of large cities like New York.
Ghana’s population is less than 15% of Nigeria’s, which did not make the list.
Having a smaller population than some of Africa’s most prosperous nations along with a higher GDP than potential competitor, Nigeria, likely drives up Ghana’s cost of living in comparison with larger populations.
The large number of expats drawn to Ghana because of its comparatively stable economy also likely contributes to a higher average cost of living.
