Moving to Muscat

Today we look at moving to Muscat in Oman from Windhoek in Namibia. 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 Muscat people speak Arabic. In Windhoek people speak English (official), Afrikaans, German, Oshivambo, Herero and Nama.

Muscat is the capital and largest city of Oman. Windhoek is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Namibia. Muscat's economy is dominated by trade, petroleum and porting. The more traditional exports of the city included dates, mother of pearl, and fish. Windhoek is the social, economic, and cultural centre of the country.

The overall cost of living rank in Muscat is 243 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with low cost of living locations.  An expatriate moving from Windhoek to Muscat will experience a change in cost of living of -15.4%.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Muscat is ranked as a some hardship location with a hardship index of 20% compared to Windhoek with a hardship index of 30% which is a high degree of hardship location.

Source: Cost of living Muscat, Oman as at July 2011.