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, Geneva (Switzerland) emerged as the most expensive city in the world with a Cost of Living index score of 101.7 followed by Zurich (score of 100.4), New York (score of 100.0), San Francisco CA (score of 90.5) and Boston MA (score of 85.8). Geneva’s CoLI value of 101.7 implies that prices in Geneva are 1.7% more expensive than those in New York City. Regionally, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) was the most expensive Arab city on the Mid-2024 Numbeo list with a CoLI value of 60.0 (ranking 78^th globally), followed by Abu Dhabi, UAE (CoLI value of 54.1 and global rank 87) and Doha, Qatar (CoLI value of 52.2 and global rank 94). Beirut was the 6^th most expensive Arab city on the Mid-2024 Numbeo list with a CoLI value of 45.2, ranking 113^th globally.Therefore, prices in Beirut are 54.8% less expensive than those in New York City. Beirut also scored 16.9 in the Rent Price Index (implying that rent prices in Beirut are 83.10% less expensive than those in New York City), 34.0 in the Groceries Price Index (therefore prices of grocery items in Beirut are 66.0% lower than those in New York City), 35.9 in the Restaurant Price Index (implying restaurant prices in Beirut are 64.1% less expensive than in New York), and 20.5 in the Local Purchasing Power Index (meaning that the local purchasing power is 79.5% lower than that in New York City).

The historical evolution of the CoLI shows that prices in Beirut have generally been increasing over the period extending between mid-2019 and mid-2022 before dropping in the mid-2023 to mid-2024 period. The hike in the CoLI values between the years 2019 and 2022 owes to the local economic & financial upheavals and the hyperinflationary environment which followed the drastic devaluation of the Lebanese pound against the US dollar. The CoLI, however, dropped in mid-2023 to 54.0 before drastically decreasing to 45.2 in the index of mid-2024 as the economy shifted to a dollarized one which improved the local purchasing power index from 11.7 in mid-2022 to 12.3 in mid-2023 and 20.5 in mid-2024 explaining the drop in other CoLI components.