Asian cities now the tops for expat professionals

From their former positions as ‘must-haves’ on expat professional CVs, the latest survey shows major European cities languishing in the bottom ten.

Predictions that the 21st century would be the Asian century seem to be coming true, at least in the minds of multinationals and their expat professional workforce. The Expat Insider survey’s Expat City Ranking’s top ten most popular cities are all in Asia, with Taiwan’s Taipei holding top spot, followed by Singapore and Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City. Bangkok sneaked in at fourth and Kuala Lumpur took the fifth place.

In the individual categories, overall quality of life saw Taiwan again at number one, with Singapore securing the fourth place, but South Korea and Hong Kong only managed scores of 23rd and 32nd out of 72 cities. Taiwan continued its success by bagging first place in the personal safety category, but only managed 15th and 21st in political stability and peacefulness. Unsurprisingly, Singapore was favoured by 90 per cent of respondents as regards peacefulness and political security, and its score for family life including education and childcare was high compared with Hong Kong and South Korea.

The major problem for expats heading for Asian countries is making friends in the local community, with the difficulties of the local languages blamed for an inability to settle and refer to the country as ‘home’. Even although many nationals in the top ten most liveable cities have some command of the English language as well as a reputation for being friendly and welcoming, expats in general aren’t often able to become fluent in Chinese, Korean or the Hokkien version of Mandarin Chinese used in Taiwan.