Kyiv ranked 69th and Moscow 41st in a comparison of purchasing power around the globe published by Swiss bank UBS on September 14, 2012, while Zurich is first, Sydney is second and Luxemburg is third.
The study includes a reference basket of goods based on European consumer habits and includes 122 items in 72 cities around the earth.
The survey shows that Oslo, Zurich and Tokyo are the most expensive cities in the world. One remarkable finding is that when rents are included, relative price levels compared to New York move down in all cities apart from Hong Kong, reads the report.
Prices for many goods and services are the lowest in the two Indian metropolises of Delhi and Mumbai. Moscow is 40th and Kyiv is 58th.
In wage levels, Zurich, Geneva, Copenhagen and Oslo head the rankings. Their income is 123-131%, using New York as a reference. When comparing wages after deduction of taxes and social security contributions, people in Zurich, Geneva and Luxembourg earn the most, while Delhi and Mumbai rank low. Residents of these cities earn around 7.6% of average wage in New York.
Moscow is 42nd in the ranking, with 30.4% of the average wage in New York, Kyiv is 67th with 10.5% of the average wage in New York.
The highest wage per hour is in Zurich. Buying an iPhone in Zurich requires 22 hours of work, while in Manila this takes around 20 times longer.
It takes 9 minutes to earn enough money to buy a Big Mac in Tokyo, while in Nairobi it will take 81 minutes, in Moscow – 18 minutes and in Kyiv – 46 minutes.
People work over 2,000 hours per year in cities of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America. Residents of Western Europe have the lowest number of working hours with the largest number of paid holidays. There are major differences within South America: With six days, Mexico has the lowest figure among all of the cities included in the study, while São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro even lead Western European cities with an average of 30 days of paid vacation.
Residents of North American cities can afford to buy the reference basket of goods on average around twelve times per year, compared to just under ten times for those in Western Europe. Purchasing power in cities in the United States is higher than in Canada's Toronto and Montreal, as wage per hour in the latter are 20% lower.
Food is most expensive in Tokyo and is cheapest in the Indian city of Mumbai, while wages in Tokyo are 20 times higher than in Delhi.
UBS said that the value of the reference basket in Eastern Europe is 35% lower on average than in Western Europe, and the average wage is 3.5 times higher in the west than in the east.
