AIRINC (Associates for International Research, Inc.)

In the bustling and colourful city of Accra, there is much to offer expatriates including a variety of recreation, shopping, and culinary exploration. While Accra has kept up with some Western customs, it lacks an abundance of Western clothing options.

In May 2020, I conducted a remote housing survey of Stockholm. I read extensively about Sweden’s herd-immunity approach to COVID-19 and how the government is not enforcing business closures.

In 2018, the United States declared its intention to withdraw from the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a 192-member body which regulates global mail service. The precipitating event was the growth of e-commerce and a shift for the U.S. from net sender to net receiver of international mail.

Over the last two years as an AIRINC Research Analyst, I’ve gotten accustomed to the multifaceted approach we take for our quarterly data collection. New assignments are allocated every three months and we fall into a familiar rhythm.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and the interconnected fall in global oil demand in the first half of 2020, many locations throughout the world are experiencing price changes and shortages of goods and services items.

Data Points brings you the latest updates from our Housing, Goods & Services, and Tax departments. These highlights are based on our expert international surveys, which are conducted on location by our global data collection team.

On my most recent trip, I surveyed Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital and most populous city in Tanzania. While conducting my survey, I observed that several areas have developed in order to cater to expatriate needs. While overall availability of goods and services is consistent, certain categories are lacking and require purchases to be made on home leave or through travel to nearby international cities, like Nairobi.

June 1 marked a day of changing times in Venezuela. The price of gasoline in the country has been among the lowest in the world for decades, and in recent years, currency depreciation has made the resource practically free.

AIRINC Housing Update: Below are select snapshots of rental markets around the world. These updates are taken from AIRINC's on-site surveys conducted during the first quarter of 2020. 

Relocating is already a challenge, but relocating during a pandemic adds a new level of difficulty. After years of surveying based in AIRINC’s Cambridge office, I was honored to accept a position at our Hong Kong branch late last year. From the beginning, I was excited to move to a vibrant global city, but the logistics proved more challenging than expected as a novel coronavirus (at the time still unnamed) spread in January. Even before being declared a pandemic, COVID-19 was having a broad and unpredictable impact across the globe.