Bermuda named third-most expensive country to live

Bermuda has been named as the third-most expensive country in the world to live by a new study.

Only Switzerland and Norway were ahead of Bermuda on the basis of how far your money goes on a range of comparable goods and services. The island is followed in the ‘top 10’ rich list by Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Japan and Finland.

The International Comparison Program data was compiled by the World Bank in 2011 and released in Washington earlier this week. 

The ICP ranked the most expensive countries — and the cheapest — by calculating their price level index and then ranked the countries according to how far money went when compared to the world Price Level Index of 100.

The report found Egypt to be the cheapest place in the world, followed by Pakistan, Myanmar and Ethiopia. With the exception of Bermuda, the most expensive economies are in the Eurostat-Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development region. The economies with the lowest prices are either in Africa or Asia and the Pacific, and include India, which has the third-largest economy. 

The study, which includes data from 199 countries across eight regions, also indicates that China is poised to overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy. n