Sunday, August 28, 2011

Moving to Yangon

Today we look at moving to Yangon in Myanmar from Fort-de-France in Martinique. 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 Yangon people speak Burmese and indigenous ethnic languages. In Fort-de-France people speak French (official) and Creole.

Yangon is also known as Rangoon and is a former capital of Burma and the capital of Yangon Division. Fort-de-France is the capital of Martinique. Yangon is the country's main centre for trade, industry, real estate, media, entertainment and tourism. The city is Lower Myanmar's main trading hub for all kinds of merchandise – from basic food stuffs to used cars although commerce continues to be hampered by the city's severely underdeveloped banking industry and communication infrastructure. Fort-de-France is one of the major cities in the Caribbean. Exports include sugar, rum, tinned fruit, and cacao.

The overall cost of living rank in Yangon is 268 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with low cost of living locations.  An expatriate moving from Fort-de-France to Yangon will experience a change in cost of living of -22.9%.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Yangon is ranked as an extreme hardship location with a hardship index of 40% compared to Fort-de-France with a hardship index of 20% which is a some hardship location.

Source: Cost of living Yangon, Myanmar as at July 2011.

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