Singapore is Asia's best destination for expats when it comes to quality of life, according to new research by Mercer.

Singapore is once again on top in Asia with regards to the quality of living for expatriates, according to new rankings by Mercer. 

Despite remaining the world's most expensive city, as ranked by the Economist Intelligence Unit just this week, Singapore came in at 25th place globally in the Mercer rankings, boasting the best quality of living for expats in Asia. Close behind and featuring as the top East Asian city, in 44th place, was Tokyo, followed by Hong Kong in 70th and Seoul in 72nd.

Meanwhile, Mercer highlighted clean water provision and air pollution as the main obstacles to improving quality of living in China's emerging business destinations, Xi’an and Chongqing. In India, significant population growth in Mumbai and New Delhi exacerbated existing problems of clean water access and traffic congestion, hindering their climb in the rankings. However, technology and business hubs Hyderabad and Pune ranked in 138th and 145th place respectively, higher than India's more traditional business cities.

“We continue to recognise emerging cities that are increasingly becoming competitors to traditional business and finance centres. These so-called ‘second-tier emerging cites’ are investing, particularly in infrastructure, to improve their quality-of-living standards and ultimately attract more foreign companies,” said Slagin Parakatil, principal at Mercer.

Australian and New Zealand cities snagged some of the top spots worldwide, with Auckland in third place, Sydney in 10th place, Wellington in 12th and Melbourne in 16th.

It was Europe though that dominated the top end of the rankings, cementing its reputation for stability in spite of the region's recent economic volatilities. According to the survey, Vienna has the best quality of life globally, followed by Zurich in second place and Munich in fourth. Vancouver came in at fifth place, making it the highest-ranking North American city.

Mercer's annual Quality of Living survey seeks to help global companies pay employees fairly when assigning them overseas. Mercer evaluates local living conditions in more than 440 cities globally.

Editor's comment: There have been a raft of recent surveys presenting the most desirable/costly/stable regimes around the world. While no single pattern emerges, it is clear that countries with a high degree of legal and political stability, and stable economies, are the most desirable places to do business. This is, of course, a statement of the obvious, but as jurisdictions such as Singapore and Hong Kong battle it out to be seen as the best financial centres, there are lessons. For a start, these places can be damaged by any suggestion of disorder or if their property markets become so costly that doing business there is a headache. In Hong Kong last year, political protests gave the city the wrong kind of publicity, if only for a while. In Singapore, the city needs to keep on top of the issue of it being such an expensive place to live.