Surveys
Singapore is Favourite Place to Live for Expats
Expatriates say Singapore is the best place to live when measured across a variety of key tests, according to a survey carried out for HSBC.
The Expat Explorer study, which was carried out on 2,155 expats, also found that the UK and France were among the lowest rated destinations. Meanwhile, Hong Kong paid its foreign professionals the highest salaries, with almost half of them earning more than £100,000 ($198,650) a year. Yet 53 per cent of the respondents living in the city complained about poorer housing conditions after relocating to Hong Kong, the survey showed.
Cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore are battling for the custom of people working outside their home countries, hoping to attract these often affluent individuals for their business.
Singapore won the overall top spot after being rated the top place in terms of accommodation. It came second for luxury living, such as owning more than one car or property, and affordability of household staff. It tied with Hong Kong for second place for the ability to earn and save, the survey said.
Singapore is seen by the wealth management industry as one of the world’s fastest growing centres.
US and United Arab Emirates tied for the second place overall among 15 countries and territories ranked in the survey.
"The global expat community is vast and living in foreign countries means that expats don't often have the normal outlets to express their viewpoints," said Paul Say, head of Marketing and Communications at HSBC Bank International.
The UK (14th) and France (13th) were some of the lowest rated expat destinations in the survey, scoring low on their levels of luxury and accommodation. Spain and China also rated poorly, ranking 12th and 11th respectively. Australia featured 10th in the survey, scoring highly on levels of luxury, ability to earn and save and accommodation, but scoring lowly for longevity.
Europe is a popular destination overall for its longevity - more than three quarters (82 per cent) of expats now living in the Netherlands have been there for three or more years, followed by Germany (77 per cent) and Spain (76 per cent). Ireland and New Zealand have the greatest percentage of global travellers, with more than three quarters (80 per cent) of respondents originally from both countries stating that they had been away from home for longer than three years.
