The Asian city-state remains the most expensive place to live in the world and other Asia hubs also feature in the top rankings, a survey shows.

Singapore remains the world’s most expensive city although that position is deceptive at first glance because the Asian city-state had fallen to fourth place for a period last year, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Other Asian cities feature in the top ten, such as Hong Kong and Seoul.

The surge in the value of the Swiss franc at the start of the year would in fact mean that, as at current exchange rates, Zurich and Geneva are now the costliest cities, the EIU, which looks at 133 cities, said. The report looks at the price of more than 160 services to create a composite overall figure.

“In fact, midway through 2014 Singapore lay in fourth position, and the reassertion of an identical top five comes with a stronger US dollar and weaker euro pushing eurozone cities back down later in 2014,” the report said.

At a time when Singapore is battling against other cities to be a major, if not the lead, hub for wealth management, the variations in costs are significant, particularly when banks choose jurisdictions from which to operate.

In descending order of cost, the most expensive cities were: Singapore, Paris, Oslo, Zurich, Sydney, Melbourne, Geneva, Copenhagen, Hong Kong and Seoul. New York is ranked as 22nd, rising from 26th a year earlier.

“A marked increase in the cost of living in many Asian locations has seen Asian cities make up half of the ten most expensive in the world, with Western European locations making up the other half. But even in this relationship, the dynamics have changed over time. Weak inflation, or deflation and a devaluation of the Japanese yen, have pushed the cities of Tokyo and Osaka further down the ranking,” the report said.

Both cities have traditionally been the two most expensive globally over the past 20 years, but they now lie in 11th and 16th place respectively. Conversely, Seoul, which was ranked 50th five years ago, is now among the ten most expensive, it continued.

“The cost of living in Seoul is now on a par with that of Hong Kong, which was once (in 2003) the third most expensive city surveyed. Equally, the long-term rise in the relative cost of living in Australia, driven by sustained strengthening of the Australian dollar, has cemented the positions of cities like Sydney and Melbourne as top-ten staples. This comes despite the fact that ten years ago both cities were cheaper than New York,” it said.