Seoul, Exorbitant City
Seoul is among the world’s most expensive cities despite the fact that Korea only ranks 49th in terms of per capita income. Some international compilers of price indexes put Seoul above notoriously exorbitant Tokyo, New York and London. In a survey of the cost of living in 144 cities in March last year, Mercer Human Resource Consulting found Seoul the second most expensive city after Moscow. Seoul moved up three notches from 2005.According to the 2006 Corporate Travel Index by Business Travel News of the U.S., a stay in Seoul cost US$567, the third most expensive among 100 cities after Monte Carlo and Paris. In a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Seoul was cheaper than other cities but the price increase was steep. In the index of 130 cities, Seoul ranked 13th, above New York and up 12 notches from the previous year. The institute put Seoul’s prices at 110 against the benchmark 100 of the United States.
The Mainichi Shimbun's Seoul correspondent Tetsuo Nakajima lives alone in a studio apartment in Yeonhee-dong, Seoul. He pays W800,000 (about 100,000 yen) rent for the room, for which he also forked out a W10 million (US$1=W936) deposit. In Tokyo, his wife and three children live in a four-room public apartment. They pay 130,000 yen (about W1 million) in rent without deposit. In other words, he pays nearly as much for a studio here as for his four family members back in Tokyo. The BBC’s Charles Scanlon, previously stationed in Japan, says housing prices in Seoul are almost the same as in Tokyo. With the exception of Hong Kong, Seoul's housing prices seem to be three to four times higher than elsewhere in Asia.
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Scanlon spends days off in the mountains or by the seaside but can’t understand the high hotel room rates. Elsewhere in Asia, he says, visitors can stay at a luxury hotel for $150 to $200 a night. In Korea, that only gets them somewhere middling. Divine Munguia from Los Angeles, who teaches English at a private tutoring institute, was shocked when she first saw what organic vegetables cost at a superstore. In the U.S., she says, she can buy a bagel for $1. But one shop in Seoul sells bagels for W3,000, more than three times as much. Scanlon is also baffled by the high price of imported beer, which is twice as expensive as Korean brands. An imported beer costs about W7,000 in Seoul, double the price in London and about three times higher than in other Asian cities.
Munguia does not bother with a cell phone. According to her, there is almost no difference between the prices of the handsets themselves in Korea and the U.S., but the difference in monthly charges is huge. Books are another puzzle. In the U.S., each thick volume of the Harry Potter series sells for $10 (about W9,000). In translation, each installment is divided into four volumes costing W8,000 each or W32,000 for the set and W200,000 for all six books.
"Since last year, Japanese diplomats based in Seoul have outrun their colleagues in Washington, D.C. in terms of their living allowance,” Nakajima says. High prices are the reason. Scanlon says Koreans are not necessarily unhappy just because of the high prices. But asked if he enjoys living in Seoul, he shakes his head: "Schools are average. Medical facilities are average. There are not many good weekend destinations. Why are the prices so high?"
Source : http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200701/200701250019.html
