Numbeo.com, a global statistics website, recently released its global cost of living index (CoLI) in which it compares countries worldwide based on their scores in the index when benchmarked to New York City. It also provides the values of four other indices namely the Rent Index, the Groceries Price Index, the Restaurant Price Index, and the Local Purchasing Power Index for each country, always when benchmarked to the city of New York. According to Numbeo’s latest statistics, Bermuda emerged as the most expensive country with a Cost of Living index score of 147.77 followed by Switzerland (score of 125.69) and Norway (score of 96.80). Bermuda’s CoLI value of 147.77, implies that prices in Bermuda are 47.77% more expensive than those in New York City. Qatar was the most expensive Arab country on the mid-2020 Numbeo list with a CoLI value of 67.54 (ranking 29^th globally), followed by Lebanon (CoLI value of 64.26 and global rank 34) and the United Arab Emirates (CoLI value of 62.98 and global rank of 35).Therefore, prices in Lebanon are 35.74% less expensive than those in New York City, with Lebanon also scoring 23.18 in the Rent Price Index, 50.70 in the Groceries Price Index, 54.77 in the Restaurant Price Index, and 35.28 in the Local Purchasing Power Index.

The historical evolution of the CoLI shows that prices in Lebanon have generally decreased over the last couple of years before increasing in the mid-2020 index, yet the local purchasing power index has been almost constantly on the decline. As far as other accompanying indices are concerned, the Rent Index has fallen over the covered period, with the Restaurant Price Index also being on the decline since Mid-2018 while the Groceries Index rose significantly in the mid-2020 index due to inflationary pressures.