Nine of the 10 most expensive places in the world to live are in Europe, according to a UBS study.

Tokyo, at third place, is the only non-European city in a list whose rankings reflect the recent strengthening of the euro against the dollar. New York, at 12th place, is cheaper than the likes of Stockholm, Copenhagen, ranked second, and Oslo, in first. Luckily for residents of these Scandinavian cities, they also come near the top of UBS's separate survey of wage comparisons. The Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) and Karachi in Pakistan were the cheapest of the 71 cities surveyed, with prices about one-quarter of the levels found in the most expensive countries.

But gross wages in the Indian and Pakistani cities were also the lowest, at just three percent of the levels found in the cities with the best pay levels, Copenhagen or Zurich.

"A worker in Mumbai must work 89 minutes for a kilo of rice, while a Swiss needs only five to seven minutes," the survey said. Worldwide, UBS estimated that people now have to work one or two minutes less on average than in 2003 to be able to afford a hamburger or a kilo of bread or rice.