Monday, July 18, 2011

Moving to Bandar Seri Begawan

In our series of short blogs on moving between different international locations, we highlight cost of living and other major differences likely to be experienced.
Today we look at moving to Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei from Brussels in Belgium.
In Brussels people speak Dutch (local variant called Flemish), French and German. In Bandar Seri Begawan people speak Malay, English and Chinese.

Brussels is the de facto capital city of the European Union (EU) and the largest urban area in Belgium.
Bandar Seri Begawan is the capital and largest city of the Sultanate of Brunei.
Serving as the centre of administration for Europe, Brussels' economy is largely service-oriented. It is dominated by regional and world headquarters of multinationals, by European institutions, by various administrations, and by related services, though it does have a number of notable craft industries, such as the Cantillon Brewery, a lambic brewery founded in 1900.
Bandar Seri Begawan produces furniture, textiles, handicrafts, and timber.

The overall cost of living rank in Brussels is 45 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with high cost of living locations. An expatriate moving from Brussels to Bandar Seri Begawan which has an overall cost of living rank of 152, which equates it with middle cost of living locations, will experience a change in cost of living of -19.4%.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Bandar Seri Begawan is ranked as a high degree of hardship location with a hardship index of 30% compared to Brussels with a hardship index of 10% which is a minimal hardship location.

Source: http://www.xpatulator.com as at July 2011.

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