Numbeo.com, a global statistics website, recently released its global cost of living index (CoLI) in which it compares cities 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 city, always when benchmarked to the city of New York. According to Numbeo’s latest statistics, Hamilton emerged as the most expensive city with a Cost of Living index score of 146.33 followed by Basel (score of 136.65), Zurich (score of 135.49) and Lausanne (score of 132.86). Hamilton’s CoLI value of 146.33, implies that prices in Hamilton are 46.33% more expensive than those in New York City. Beirut was the most expensive Arab city on the 2021 Numbeo list with a CoLI value of 83.64 (ranking 57^th globally), followed by Doha (CoLI value of 64.14 and global rank 288) and Abu Dhabi (CoLI value of 59.76 and global rank of 312).Therefore, prices in Beirut are 16.36% less expensive than those in New York City, with Beirut also scoring 25.44 in the Rent Price Index, 82.09 in the Groceries Price Index, 72.25 in the Restaurant Price Index, and 24.92 in the Local Purchasing Power Index.

The historical evolution of the CoLI shows that prices in Beirut have generally decreased over the last couple of years before skyrocketing in the 2021 index as a result of the local economic & financial crisis and the hyperinflationary environment which followed the drastic devaluation of the Lebanese pound against the US dollar. This explains the unprecedented drop in the local purchasing power index from 51.84 in 2017 to just below 41 in 2020 and 24.92 in the 2021 index.