Australian cities offer the best value for expatriates in the Asia Pacific, based on Mercer's Worldwide Cost of Living Survey 2010.

Results of the study found cities in Australian and New Zealand as competitive destinations for global workers compared to other territories in the region.
Sydney placed 24th in the survey of the most expensive city for expatriates, with Melbourne 33rd, Brisbane 55th, Perth 60th and Canberra 74th.
These rankings were favourable compared to Tokyo's second, Osaka 6th, Hong Kong eighth, Singapore 11th and Beijing 16th spot.

Luanda, the capital of Angola in southwestern Africa, was at the top of the list of most expensive city for expatriates in the survey of 214 locations across five continents.

Mercer senior associate Anthony Shippard said companies had to assess quality of living standards when considering true "value of living" in individual cities.

"If we take into account the results of Mercer's 2010 Quality of Living survey earlier this year, it found that Australian and New Zealand cities rank among the world's top 36 cities for overall quality of living," Mr Shippard said.

"Combining the cost of living findings with overall quality of living standards reinforces the need for multinational organisations to regularly review multiple external factors and data shifts when determining their expatriate management programs."

The survey was based on the relative cost of more than 200 items. These include housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment.
New York City is the base for the index. All cities were compared against the US city.

Other cities in the top 10 were Ndjamena (3) in Chad, Moscow (4), Geneva (5), Libreville (7) in Gabon, Zurich (joint 8) and Copenhagen (10).