Moving to Pyongyang

Today we look at moving to Pyongyang in Korea Democratic Republic of from Rome in Italy. 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 Pyongyang people speak Korean. In Rome people speak Italian.

Pyongyang is the capital of North Korea. Rome is the largest city and capital of Italy.
Pyongyang has been completely redesigned since the Korean War (1950–1953). It is designed with wide avenues, imposing monuments, and monolithic buildings. The city also has regular international train services to Beijing and Moscow. A journey to Beijing takes about 25 hours and 25 minutes; a journey to Moscow takes 6 days. The economy of Rome is characterized by the absence of heavy industry and is largely dominated by services, high-technology companies (IT, aerospace, defense, telecommunications), research, construction and commercial activities (especially banking), and the huge development of tourism are very dynamic and extremely important to its economy.

The overall cost of living rank in Pyongyang is 276 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with low cost of living locations.  An expatriate moving from Rome to Pyongyang will experience a change in cost of living of -37.4%.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Pyongyang is ranked as an extreme hardship location with a hardship index of 40% compared to Rome with a hardship index of 10% which is a minimal hardship location.

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