Moving to Guangzhou

Today we look at moving to Guangzhou in China from Montreal in Canada. We highlight cost of living and other major differences likely to be experienced in our series of short blogs on moving between different international locations.
In Guangzhou people speak Mandarin and Chinese. In Montreal people speak English and French (both official).

Guangzhou is a sub-provincial city and the capital of Guangdong Province in the southern part of the People's Republic of China. Montreal is the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec.
Guangzhou is the main manufacturing hub of the Pearl River Delta, one of mainland China's leading commercial and manufacturing regions. Guangzhou's economic output is ranked third among Chinese cities after Beijing and Shanghai. Montreal's economy is the second largest of all cities in Canada and the largest in Quebec. The city is today an important centre of commerce, finance, industry, technology, culture, and world affairs.

The overall cost of living rank in Guangzhou is 264 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with low cost of living locations.  An expatriate moving from Montreal to Guangzhou will experience a change in cost of living of -31.5%.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Guangzhou is ranked as a high degree of hardship location with a hardship index of 30% compared to Montreal with a hardship index of 10% which is a minimal hardship location.

Source: http://www.xpatulator.com as at July 2011.