Qatar is a peninsula bordering the Arabian Gulf and Saudi
Arabia. Arabic is the national
language and English is spoken by most locals and expatriates.
Doha is Qatar's largest city, with over 80% of
the nation's population residing here or its surrounding suburbs, and is also
the economic center of the country.
The overall cost of living rank in Doha is 84 out of 300 global
locations, which equates it with high cost of living locations for expatriates
to live.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to
experience, assessed in global terms, Doha is ranked as a some hardship location
with a hardship index of 20%.
According to the recent Consumer Price Index released by the Qatar Statistics Authority, the cost of
everything but rent in Qatar has gone up. Compared to the
cost of things like clothes, food and transportation in May 2010, prices have
gone up between 0.4 to 7.8 percent, QSA reports:
“The highest increase was in the Clothing and Footwear group, where
prices went up by 7.8%, followed by Transport and Communications by 5.2%, ,
Miscellaneous Goods and Services, by 4.8%, Food & Beverages group, by 4.5%.
Prices in the group of Rent declined by (3.8%).”
CPI has also been calculated excluding the group of rent. After
eliminating the effect of rent, the overall index shows a 1 month increase of
0.4% in May 2011 compared to April 2011, and an increase of 4.1 % for the
full year compared to the month of May 2010, as published in Doha
News.
Added to this, all citizens employed by the Government
will be receiving up to a 60% increase in their salaries, which will likely snowball
the already increasing prices. As an expatriate this is not good news, if
salaries do not increase on the expatriate front as well. Increasing prices will decrease
expatriate purchasing power and result in expats unable to send
money home, save or sustain a decent standard of living.
Xpatulator.com provides cost of living
comparison calculators by city. Choose salary, cost of
living allowance, or cost of living index report
for international comparison of global locations across the world.
Cost of living and hardship (quality of life) data is updated
quarterly. Current data is as at 1 July 2011 based on data collected during the
second quarter of 2011. Exchange rates are updated daily. The latest free cost of
living rankings as well as free cost of
living reviews are available for all 300 global
locations and all 13 cost of living baskets.
Cost of living index (percentage) and hardship (quality of life)
index information for 13 different cost of living baskets in 300
international locations are delivered via 3 premium content
self service comparison calculators (Report Wizards) that generate personalised
reports online:
Denise is an Expat, Mom, Wife, writer and Marketing Manager at http://www.xpatulator.com/ a website that provides cost of living index information and calculates what you need to earn in a different location to compensate for cost of living, hardship, and exchange rate differences. The complete cost of living rank for all 300 locations for all 13 baskets is available here.
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