Hong Kong rents for well-off expats ‘most expensive in the world’

Rent on high-end flats in Hong Kong remains more expensive than in any other city worldwide - double the level of Singapore - despite a slight fall in the past year, an annual study found.

The survey by human resources consultancy ECA International found that the average monthly rent for three-bedroom flats in areas popular with expats in senior jobs, such as The Peak, Discovery Bay and Sha Tin, was US$11,444 per month last year.

While the price was down 1 per cent on 2012 - a factor attributed by researchers to government efforts to cool the property market and a trend for companies to send lower-ranking staff to the city - rents remained 23.5 per cent higher than in the second priciest city, Moscow.

It is the ninth consecutive year Hong Kong has topped the table, and the 13th time it has ranked most expensive since the survey of rents for expats began in 1996.

And it came just days after regional rival Singapore was named the world's most expensive city in another survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Hong Kong ranked 13th in that study, which took into account the cost of 160 products and services but excluded housing costs.

But Lee Quane, ECA's regional director for Asia, said high rents had little impact on Hong Kong's competitiveness. And the difference in rental costs between Hong Kong and Singapore was narrowing, though the gap with Tokyo was widening fast.

Four years ago, rents in Tokyo were 6 per cent lower than in Hong Kong. This year they were 55 per cent lower. The Japanese capital has seen rents fall in relative terms partly as a result of the weakening of the yen against the US dollar, the currency in which the survey is conducted. Rents in Mumbai were also down due to the weak rupee.