Moving to Taipei

Today we look at moving to Taipei in Taiwan from Pretoria in South Africa. 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 Taipei people speak Mandarin Chinese (official) and Min Nan Chinese (Taiwanese). In Pretoria people speak 11 official languages including English, Afrikaans, Sesotho, Setswana, Xhosa and Zulu.

Taipei is the largest city in Taiwan and is the de facto capital of the Republic of China. Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive (administrative) and de facto national capital. As the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in the production of high technology and its components. As the national administrative (executive) capital of South Africa, Pretoria is the seat of government and houses the headquarters of the main government departments and ministries. As the de facto capital city, it also hosts the foreign embassies and diplomatic missions. The city is a major commercial centre and an important industrial centre. Its main industries are iron and steel works, copper casting, and the manufacture of automobiles, railway carriages and heavy machinery.

The overall cost of living rank in Taipei is 65 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with high cost of living locations.  An expatriate moving from Pretoria to Taipei will experience a change in cost of living of 18.8%.

In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Taipei is ranked as a some hardship location with a hardship index of 20% compared to Pretoria with a hardship index of 30% which is a high degree of hardship location.

Source: Cost of Living Taiwan Taipei as at July 2011.