India least popular among expats for a long haul: Survey

It offers the cheapest accommodation, the highest savings and a luxurious life across the world, but India is still the least desired place when it comes to attracting the expatriates for a longer stay, a new survey reveals.     

According to a survey of expatriates across four continents, conducted by global banking major HSBC, Singapore, the US and UAE have emerged as the top three most popular destinations among expats.     

The overall ranking, where India has been placed at ninth position, is based on four criteria — longevity, earning and saving, luxury and accommodation.     

In individual categories, India has been ranked as the country with the cheapest accommodation, while it comes on the top in terms of earnings and savings for the expats. 

In terms of living a luxurious life also, India has been ranked as the third best after UAE and Singapore.     

However, when it comes to longevity, which measures the score of a country in terms of attracting expats and where expats settle down, India has been ranked at the bottom of the list.

The three countries scoring highest in terms of longevity are Netherlands, Germany and the US.     

Europe has emerged as the most popular destination in terms of the length of time expats stay there.

More than three quarters (82 per cent) of expats now living in the Netherlands have been there for three or more years, followed by Germany (77 per cent) and Spain (76 per cent).     
In the overall ranking of 15 economies, Jersey, the UK and France emerged as the lowest rated expat destinations.     

Spain and China also rated poorly, ranking 12th and 11th, respectively, while Australia featured 10th in the survey, despite scoring high on levels of luxury, ability to earn and save and accommodation as it scored low for longevity.