South Asia Investor Review

It costs less to live in Bangalore, India's high-tech capital, and Bombay, India's financial capital, than to live in Pakistan's megacity of Karachi, according to the 2016 Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report. The survey says Karachi's cost of living index is 44 while Bangalore's is 42 and Mumbai's 43. The survey bases it on New York City's cost of living set at 100. Lusaka, Zambia, is the cheapest with cost of living index measured at 41.


In fact, there are four Indian cities and just one Pakistani city among the cheapest cities in the world, according to the latest EIU survey. The complete list of the World's Cheapest Cities is as follows:

1. Lusaka, Zambia
2. Bengaluru (Bangalore), India
3. Mumbai (Bombay), India
4. Almaty, Kazakhstan
5. Algiers, Algeria
6. Chennai (Madras), India
7. Karachi, Pakistan
8. New Delhi, India
9. Damascus, Syria
10. Caracas, Venezuela

Seven of the world's cheapest cities are in Asia, one in South America and two in…

Pakistan is seeing soaring foreign direct investment (FDI) with improving security and the start of several major energy and infrastructure projects as part of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), according to the UK's Financial Times business newspaper.

A New High in FDI:

The year 2015 was a bumper year for foreign investment  pouring into Pakistan, says the Financial Times. The country saw 39 greenfield investments adding up to an estimated $18.9 billion last year, according to fDi Markets, an FT data service. This is a big jump from 28 projects for $7.6 billion started in 2014, and marks a new high for greenfield capital investment into the country since fDi began collecting data in 2003.



The number of projects in 2015 is the largest since Pakistan attracted 57 greenfield projects back in 2005 on President Musharraf's watch.  China is now the top source country for investment into the country, surpassing the second-ranked United Arab Emirates, primarily due to its invest…