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Discuss this article (2 Comments)Dubai ranked Mideast's best for quality of living
by This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it on Tuesday, 28 April 2009
CITY RANKING: Dubai has been ranked the top Mideast city for quality of living in a new survey. (Getty Images)
Dubai has topped a list to find the city with the best quality of living in the Middle East and North Africa region.
The emirate was ranked 77th overall, an improvement of six places on its 2008 listing, in the Mercer 2009 Quality of Living Survey.
Globally, Vienna passed Zurich to take the top spot as European cities continued to dominate the top locations while Baghdad propped up the table of 215 cities.
Other regional cities listed in the quality of living survey were Abu Dhabi (84, up three places on 2008), Manama (111, up 11), Kuwait City (125, up eight), Riyadh (159, up four) and Jeddah (160, no move).
Slagin Parakatil, senior researcher at Mercer, said: "As a result of the current financial crisis, multinationals are looking to review their international assignment policies with a view to cutting costs.
"Many companies plan to reduce the number of medium to long-term international assignments and localise their expatriate compensation packages where possible though the hardship allowance, based on quality of living criteria, will remain an essential component of the package."
The rankings are based on a point-scoring index, which saw Vienna score 108.6, and Baghdad 14.4.
Cities are ranked against New York as the base city with an index score of 100. Mercer's Quality of Living ranking covers 215 cities and is conducted to help governments and major companies place employees on international assignments.
In a related survey, Dubai was ranked the 35th top city in the world for infrastructure, such as based on electricity supply, water availability, telephone and mail services, public transport provision, traffic congestion and the range of international flights from local airports.
This was again the top ranking for a Middle East country with Abu Dhabi (72), Manam (110), Kuwait City (115), Riyadh (119) and Jeddah (139) also included.
Baghdad also came bottom of this list, which was topped by Singapore.
Parakatil added: "Infrastructure has a significant effect on the quality of living experienced by expatriates. While often taken for granted when functioning to a high standard, a city's infrastructure can generate severe hardship when it is lacking.
"Companies need to provide adequate allowances to compensate their international workers for these and other hardships."
READERS' COMMENTS
Disclaimer: The views expressed here by our readers are not necessarily shared by ArabianBusiness.com or its employees.
Stop Bashing Dubai, the world is too big!
Posted by UAE LADY, Abu Dhabi, UAE on Wednesday 29 April 2009 at 15:33 UAE time
Mr. Paul,
Cheaper in what sense? Dubai is a tax free heaven, so what more are you suggesting? This is not a charity; this city has suffered from speculators and white collar thieves.
Also, you cannot compare countries like the US, or countries in Europe to the UAE. The UAE is less than 40 years old, and has managed to achieve such outstanding milestones in less than what above countries had achieved in their 100’s birthday!
So, Dubai will not have its head down, we’ll learn from mistakes and grow.
Posted by UAE LADY, Abu Dhabi, UAE on Wednesday 29 April 2009 at 15:33 UAE time
Mr. Paul,
Cheaper in what sense? Dubai is a tax free heaven, so what more are you suggesting? This is not a charity; this city has suffered from speculators and white collar thieves.
Also, you cannot compare countries like the US, or countries in Europe to the UAE. The UAE is less than 40 years old, and has managed to achieve such outstanding milestones in less than what above countries had achieved in their 100’s birthday!
So, Dubai will not have its head down, we’ll learn from mistakes and grow.
what score
Posted by paul, Dubai, UAE on Wednesday 29 April 2009 at 11:30 UAE time
Dubai was 77th out of 215. But what score did it get (the story seemed to miss that I think)?
Dubai should get its head down and keep working, comparisons to Monaco (admittedly made by Dubai and not by Monaco) were really quite unrealistic but it is not such a bad place even if it will be a long time before it can offer the quality of life that Europeans enjoy.
The way things are going, it will certainly offer more bang for your buck if rents keep falling.
Dubai just needs to focus on becoming cheaper and more open for business; its lifestyle cannot match Europe so it was folly to have costs of living higher than Europe. This is now being fixed.
It may not be premierleague yet, but there is no shame in being a good championship side for a few years.
Posted by paul, Dubai, UAE on Wednesday 29 April 2009 at 11:30 UAE time
Dubai was 77th out of 215. But what score did it get (the story seemed to miss that I think)?
Dubai should get its head down and keep working, comparisons to Monaco (admittedly made by Dubai and not by Monaco) were really quite unrealistic but it is not such a bad place even if it will be a long time before it can offer the quality of life that Europeans enjoy.
The way things are going, it will certainly offer more bang for your buck if rents keep falling.
Dubai just needs to focus on becoming cheaper and more open for business; its lifestyle cannot match Europe so it was folly to have costs of living higher than Europe. This is now being fixed.
It may not be premierleague yet, but there is no shame in being a good championship side for a few years.
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