全球生活質量排名：維也納居首 北京上升

Vienna has beaten Zurich to be crowned the place with the best quality of living in an annual survey in which European cities dominated the top 10.

Management consultancy Mercer said Vienna scored the highest for overall quality of living in the 215-city survey after improvements in Austria's political and social environment, knocking the Swiss city of Zurich into second position.

Third in the list came another Swiss city, Geneva, followed by Vancouver, Canada, and Auckland, New Zealand, in shared fourth place.

Baghdad, Iraq, came last despite slight improvements in its infrastructure and moves to encourage investment.

Three German cities made the top 10 -- Dusseldorf, Munich and Frankfurt -- with the list rounded out by Bern in Switzerland and Sydney, Australia.

The highest U.S. ranking in the 2009 Worldwide Quality of Living Survey was Honolulu which came 29th while Washington and New York remained in positions 44 and 49 respectively.

London came 38th in the list which is designed to help governments and companies formulate international packages for their employees.

"As a result of the current financial crisis, multinationals are looking to review their international assignment policies with a view to cutting costs," said Slagin Parakatil, senior researcher at Mercer, in a statement.

"Many companies plan to reduce the number of medium to long-term international assignments and localize their expatriate compensation packages where possible though the hardship allowance, based on quality of living criteria, will remain an essential component of the package."

Singapore was the top-scoring Asian city, coming in 26th which was up six places from a year ago due to its growing importance as a financial center and its wide range of international and private schools.

Beijing moved up three places to 113, boosted by improvements in public transport facilities from the Olympics last August.

在一年一度的全球城市生活質量調查中，維也納擊敗蘇黎世當選全球生活質量最佳的城市。排行榜的前十位多爲歐洲城市所佔據。

據美世管理諮詢公司介紹，這項調查共有215個城市參評，維也納在總體生活質量方面得分最高，瑞士的蘇黎世屈居第二，這都得益於奧地利政治和社會環境的改善。

瑞士的另一個城市日內瓦位居第三，加拿大的溫哥華與新西蘭的奧克蘭並列第四。

儘管伊拉克首都巴格達的基礎設施略有改善，並正採取措施鼓勵投資，但在今年的排行中仍墊底。

躋身排行榜前十位的其它幾個城市包括：德國的三大城市——杜塞爾多夫、慕尼黑和法蘭克福以及瑞典的伯爾尼和澳大利亞的悉尼。

在“2009全球城市生活質量”排行榜上，排名最靠前的美國城市是位居第29位的檀香山；華盛頓和紐約保持原位，分列第44位和第49位。

倫敦名列第38位，該排行榜旨在幫助政府和公司制定外派員工的薪酬。

美世諮詢的高級研究員斯拉金•帕拉卡迪爾在一份聲明中說：“由於受目前金融危機的影響，跨國公司希望能重審他們的海外派遣計劃，以削減成本。”

“很多公司計劃削減中長期海外派遣計劃，並在可能的地方將外派員工的薪酬本地化，不過基於生活標準的困難津貼仍將是薪酬中的主要部分。”

新加坡在亞洲城市中排名最高，位居第26位，比去年上升了六個榜位，這主要是因爲新加坡作爲金融中心的地位日趨重要，而且它擁有衆多的國際和私立學校。

北京也上升了三個榜位，名列第113位，這主要是因爲去年8月的奧運會對北京的公共交通設施起到了一定的改善作用。