VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – You think Vancouver’s expensive? A new survey from Mercer says there are 62 world cities that cost more to live in for ex-pats, and one of them is Toronto.

Montreal saw a slight downward shift, dropping 8 spots to 87th, but Elena Rodriguez with Mercer says otherwise Canadian cities were quite stable.

“There was not a great deal of movement and several of the cities are closely ranked together — Toronto and Vancouver most notably at 61 and 63 respectively.”

The reason for little change (Vancouver is up two places, as is Toronto) is a steady dollar.

“There were several [European countries] that dropped in the ranking,” explains Rodriguez. “That would mainly be due to the unstable economic situation across Europe which has lead to depreciation in local currencies against the US dollar. Countries hit badly include Greece, Italy and Spain, for obvious reasons.”

The survey covers 214 global cities measuring the comparative cost of over 200 items in each place, including transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment.

Tokyo is the world’s most expensive city for expatriates; Karachi, Pakistan is the cheapest.

Cities in Australia and New Zealand saw some of the biggest jumps.

Top 10 Most Expensive Cities to Live
Rank                  City          Country
2012    2011
1             2        Tokyo        Japan
2             1        Luanda      Angola
3             6        Osaka        Japan
4             4        Moscow    Russia
5             5        Geneva      Switzerland
6             7        Zurich        Switzerland
6             8        Singapore   Singapore
8             3        N’Djamena  Chad
9             9        Hong Kong Hong Kong
10          11       Nagoya       Japan

Bottom 10 Most Expensive Cities to Live
205        200      Tirana        Albania
205        208    Tegucigalpa  Honduras
207        200     Skopje       Macedonia
208        203     Kolkata      India
209        207     Tunis          Tunisia
210        212     La Paz        Bolivia
211        210     Bishkek      Kyrgyzstan
212        213     Managua    Nicaragua
213        209     Islamabad   Pakistan
214        214     Karachi       Pakistan