Friday, September 9, 2011

Moving to Cape Town

Today we look at moving to Cape Town in South Africa from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. 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 Cape Town people speak 11 official languages including English, Afrikaans, Sesotho, Setswana, Xhosa and Zulu. In Jeddah people speak Arabic.

Cape Town is the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape, as well as the legislative capital of South Africa, where the National Parliament and many government offices are situated. Jeddah is the second largest city in Saudi Arabia after the capital city, Riyadh. Jeddah is the principal gateway to Mecca, Islam's holiest city, which able-bodied Muslims are required to visit at least once in their lifetime. It is also a gateway to Medina ,the second holiest place in islam. Cape Town is the economic centre of the Western Cape Province, South Africa's second main economic centre and even Africa's third main economic hub city. It serves as the regional manufacturing centre in the Western Cape. It also has the primary harbour and airport in the province. Jeddah is the most cosmopolitan and tolerant of all Saudi Arabian cities, hosting expatriates from all over the world who have made Jeddah their home. Economically, Jeddah is focussing on further developing capital investment in scientific and engineering leadership within Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East.

The overall cost of living rank in Cape Town is 149 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with middle cost of living locations.  An expatriate moving from Jeddah to Cape Town will experience a change in cost of living of 22%.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Cape Town is ranked as a high degree of hardship location with a hardship index of 30% the same as Jeddah.

Source: Cost of Living Cape Town South Africa as at July 2011.

No comments:

Post a Comment