Tokyo world's most expensive city for food: Swiss bank UBS

Tokyo is the world's most expensive city for food, followed by Zurich and Geneva, according to a report released by the Swiss bank UBS covering 72 cities in 58 countries.

The food basket composed of 39 different representative products, used as the measurement unit, costs USD 928 in Tokyo, USD 715 in Geneva and USD 704 in Zurich, the bank's annual Prices and Earnings report said yesterday.

The two cheapest cities of the world are Mumbai and Delhi, where the same baskets of foods cost USD 186 and USD 208 respectively.

The average global cost of the food basket is USD 424. The report also showed that Tokyo is among the three most expensive cities in general, for goods and services, behind Oslo and Zurich, while Delhi and Mumbai are again the two cheapest. The Japanese capital is 8.

Prices in Tokyo are more than three times higher than in Delhi, the cheapest city.

Differences at the regional level are important, the report noted, highlighting that "Oslo and Zurich are around 20 per cent above Western European price levels, while Tokyo is a full 50 per cent more expensive than the majority of cities in Asia.