Muscat ranks second-best city to live for Expats in Arab world for the year 2020

Muscat: The Oman capital, Muscat, was ranked the 2nd best city in the Middle East and 14th in the world for expats to live .

Muscat ranks 14th out of 66 cities, and has achieved excellent results in the settlement indicators (6th) and finance and housing (7th). According to the annual survey issued by the “InterNations” organization.

Muscat ranks 1st in the world in the local friendliness category. 82% of respondents expressed satisfaction with the general friendliness of its citizens (compared to 68% globally), and nearly 89% estimated the friendly attitude towards expats (compared to 66% worldwide).

The report stated, “It is no wonder that 77% of respondents feel at home in Muscat (compared to 64% globally).”

Expats also consider it easy to find an actual home in Muscat:

76% rate this factor positively (versus 55% worldwide), and 53% describe housing as affordable (versus 41% globally).

While respondents are not satisfied with the general cost of living (23rd), they are still happy enough with their disposable household income: 63% say it is more than they need to cover the expenses (versus 51% globally).

Abu Dhabi topped the Middle East cities as the most preferred city by expatriates, while the capital of the UAE ranked tenth in the world out of 66 cities around the world surveyed in 2020.

The poll, which has great credibility, adopted a questionnaire analysis of the answers of more than 15,000 residents in 66 cities around the world during the current year; Where a sample size of at least 50 participants is required for each city, while for expatriates it focuses on several matters; Among them are quality of urban life, ease of settling, urban business style, life and finance.

The ranking of the first ten cities came as follows: Valencia, Alicante, Lisbon, Panama City, Singapore, Malaga, Buenos Aires, Kuala Lumpur, Madrid, and Abu Dhabi in 10th place, while the poll was conducted at the beginning of last March before the start of the Corona pandemic crisis, noting that the organization “ Inter Nations “or“ Transnationals ”was founded in 2007 in Switzerland; It is the largest global network of expats and expats in the world, with 4 million members and covering about 420 cities around the world.