If you’re wealthy, the Asia-Pacific region is the most expensive place to live, with Shanghai overtaking Hong Kong as the priciest city in the world.

Those are some of the key findings from a Julius Baer Group report about luxury lifestyles, which stated that part of the reason for the region’s success was its swift recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. By contrast, the Americas were the most affordable because of the slumps in the US and Canadian dollars and sharp devaluations of Latin American currencies.

Asian cities are more expensive partly because COVID-19 didn’t become an epidemic quite the same way it unfortunately became in the other cities in the index, so they were able to function more normally than the others, said Rajesh Manwani, head of markets and wealth management solutions in the Asia-Pacific region at Julius Baer.

The report analyzed the price inflation of 20 luxury items indicative of the lifestyle of high-net-worth individuals in 25 cities across regions. To adapt to the changing world, the 2021 edition replaced categories including personal trainers, wedding banquets, Botox and pianos with bikes, treadmills, health insurance and a technology package. (Bloomberg)