The world's priciest city

The Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore continued its reign as the world's most expensive city for the second year in a row, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said in a new survey released Tuesday.

In fact, this year's Worldwide Cost of Living Report was a déjà vu of sorts, with the top five priciest cities unchanged from 2014: Paris remained in second place, followed by Oslo, Zurich and Sydney - a situation the authors described as "very rare."

European cities accounted for half of the EIU's Top Ten list, with Geneva and Copenhagen ranking seventh and eighth.

Switzerland rising

However, taking into account the Swiss franc's recent unpegging from the euro would catapult Zurich and Geneva to the top of the list, the report said. Conversely, the yen's devaluation, coupled by weak inflation, led Japanese mainstays Tokyo and Osaka to drop out of the list of more than 130 cities.

Using the cost of living in New York as a base, the biannual survey compares the cost of more than 160 products and services, including food, clothing, rent, education and transport.

For example, basic groceries in Singapore were found to be 11 percent more expensive than in New York, while the price of clothes were double and transport costs nearly triple those of the Big Apple.

pad/hg (dpa, EIU)