Tehran Nudges Tokyo as Most Expensive City

Tehran has topped Tokyo as the world’s most expensive city, with prices in both cities more than doubling those in New York, the Business International consultancy company said today.

The war-ravaged Iranian capital was in third place last year but overtook Tokyo and the Japanese industrial city of Osaka this year because of inflation and scarcity of consumer goods, the survey said.

Iran’s economy has suffered largely from the eight-year Persian Gulf war with Iraq. The Iraqi capital, Baghdad, was not included in the survey.

Business International bases its annual surveys--sold to corporations as a basis for calculating cost-of-living allowances--on such items as food, rent, utilities, household goods, clothing, entertainment, alcoholic drinks, transport and domestic help.

New York is always rated at 100 points.

Tehran ranked first this year with 209 points, Tokyo was second with 202 points and Osaka third with 200 points.

Following in order were Libreville, Gabon (166); Brazzaville, Congo (164); Lome, Togo (155); Douala, Cameroon (148); Abidjan, Ivory Coast (142); Oslo (142); Helsinki, Finland (136); Geneva (118); Tel Aviv (118), and Zurich, Switzerland (117).

The cheapest cities were Quito, Ecuador (34); Sao Paulo, Brazil (42); Caracas, Venezuela (42); Rio de Janeiro (45), and Buenos Aires (45).

In North America, cities ranked below New York were Los Angeles and Washington (97), San Francisco (96), Boston (91), and Vancouver, B.C. (88).

Equal with 100 points were Montreal and Toronto as well as Adelaide, Australia, and Wellington, New Zealand.