(Source: Business Mirror | April 23, 2018)
Makati City has the highest cost of living in the Philippines, a survey conducted by an international research group showed.
Numbeo explained on its web site that it “is the world’s largest database of user-contributed data about cities and countries worldwide.”
The research group “provides current and timely information on world living conditions, including cost of living.”
The Numbeo survey as of April this year showed Makati City’s cost of living index was 53.24 points.
Makati is known as the Philippines’s No. 1 business hub and leading financial center.
Numbeo also said Makati was No. 1 in terms of rental business, since its rent index was recorded at 25.05 points.
Its cost of living, plus rent index was 39.78 points, the highest in the country.
Even in terms of buying groceries, Makati tops the five cities in the Philippines that Numbeo included in its survey. Makati’s groceries index ended up with 57.86 points.
Makati City’s restaurant price index was also the highest with 26.91 points, the Numbeo survey showed.
However, Makati’s local purchasing power index was recorded at 43.28 points, the second highest.
Makati’s population as of 2015 data of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) was 582,602.
The bulk of its residents was between 15 and 64 years old, with a total of 421,002 as of 2015, the PSA information showed.
Numbeo said Manila had the highest local purchasing power index with 43.36 points. But its cost of living was far from the second spot. Manila’s cost of living index in the Numbeo survey ended up in 39.43 points.
Manila is the country’s capital city.
Manila’s rent index was 17.03 points, 8.02 points lower than Makati City’s.
Its cost of living plus rent index was at 28.74 points.
It got 34.69 points in groceries index, the third highest, Numbeo noted.
Its restaurant price index was at 24.94 points.
Manila’s population was 1.78 million based on PSA 2016 data.
Quezon City had the fourth-highest cost of living, which was pegged at 32.29 points. Its rent index was 7.87 points.
The cost of living plus rent index of the city was recorded at 20.64 points.
Its groceries index ended up in 26.36 points, the fifth and lowest in the five cities, Numbeo said.
Quezon City’s restaurant price index was pegged at 18.69 points. Its local purchasing power was the third highest with 34.06 points, Numbeo noted.
“The cost of living index doesn’t include accommodation expenses, such as rent or mortgage. If a city has a cost of living index of 120, this means Numbeo estimates it is 20 percent more expensive than New York [excluding rent],” Numbeo said.
The average index is 100 percent when comparing with New York City.
Rent index “is an estimation of prices of renting apartments in the city compared to New York City. If rent index is 80, Numbeo estimates that price of rents in that city is on an average 20 percent less than the price in New York,” the survey group said.
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