Moving to Tokyo

Today we look at moving to Tokyo in Japan from Jakarta in Indonesia. We highlight cost of living and other major differences likely to be experienced in our series of short blogs on moving between different international locations.
In Tokyo people speak Japanese. In Jakarta people speak Indonesian and 300 regional languages.

Tokyo is the seat of the Japanese government. Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia.
Tokyo is one of the three world finance "command centers", along with New York and London. Tokyo has the largest metropolitan economy in the world. Tokyo is a major international finance center, houses the headquarters of several of the world's largest investment banks and insurance companies, and serves as a hub for Japan's transportation, publishing, and broadcasting industries. Jakarta's economy depends heavily on financial service, trade, and manufacturing. Industry includes electronics, automotive, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences manufacturing.

The overall cost of living rank in Tokyo is 1 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with high cost of living locations.  An expatriate moving from Jakarta to Tokyo will experience a change in cost of living of 79%.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Tokyo is ranked as a some hardship location with a hardship index of 20% compared to Jakarta with a hardship index of 30% which is a high degree of hardship location.

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