During my recent survey, I visited a number of cities in Kazakhstan, including Almaty, the country’s largest city and former capital, and Nur-Sultan, the capital since 1997 and known as Astana until March 2019. Nur-Sultan was a city planned under the direction of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev and was once called “the space station in the steppes” by the Guardian newspaper.

When I was visiting Cape Town during my recent survey, it was hard to believe that a water crisis had threatened the city so severely in 2017 and 2018 that city residents faced water restrictions as low as fifty liters of water per-person-per-day.

On August 11th, Argentina held primary elections ahead of the general election scheduled for October 27th. Center-left candidate Alberto Fernandez and running mate former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner defeated center-right President Mauricio Macri. This result created uncertainty about the future of Argentina’s economic policy. Many investors pulled their money out of Argentina, and ratings agencies such as Fitch and Standard & Poor’s downgraded their credit rating. The peso experienced rapid and significant devaluation against the dollar, losing roughly 20% of its value in a matter of days. In an effort to stabilize the peso, Macri re-instituted currency controls that had been eliminated in 2015.

During the August survey of Harare, our visit found the Zimbabwean economy in a state of transition. This June, after a decade of using a mix of approaches but primarily relying on the U.S. dollar for transactions, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe announced that a new Zimbabwean dollar (ZWL), also known as the Zimdollar, was the only acceptable form of payment.

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.

Economic liberalization in Myanmar over the past decade has brought significant change to the availability of goods and services in Yangon. While expatriates once shopped on home leave or R&R trips, now Mango or Nike are available at the nearest mall.

There has been a widespread outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) in Asia. ASF is a virus that causes hemorrhagic fever in pigs, with a mortality rate approaching 100%. The disease kills pigs rapidly, typically in two to ten days, but is harmless to humans.

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.

The GCC and collective tax reforms: Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries first agreed to collective tax reforms in 2016, including directives to implement a VAT of 5%, as well as excise taxes, also known as selective taxes, and commonly referred to as “sin taxes.”

Cost of living vs Minimum wage: On January 1, 2019, the monthly national minimum wage increased from 13,430 Uruguayan pesos (UYU) to 15,000 UYU, an almost 12% annual increase. Similarly, the minimum wage had been raised 9.5% the previous year.