World's Most Expensive Country | Ground Report by Dhruv Rathee - YouTube

Greetings, friends!

Welcome to Switzerland

A country which is famous for many things

Tourism, their chocolates, their Swiss banks

But in this ground report today, I would like to talk about an aspect of Switzerland that not many would think about

Switzerland is world's most expensive country

You must be wondering How expensive?

Here, take a look

This is the food court of the airport where we ate some Indian food- from there

And this is the food- two vegetables and some rice

half a roti and two popadams

This cost us almost 40 Swiss Francs

which is 3,200 rupees in INR

Do you want a haircut?

You can get it done only for 49-50 Euros

Cost of living index was made to compare the cost of living in different cities across the world

New York was taken as the baseline while calculating this index

The cost of living index of New York is 100

And New York is counted as one of the most expensive cities of the world

There are only 6 more cities that are more expensive than NewYork

and their cost of living index is more than New York

And all those 6 cities are in Switzerland

The cost of living of India, for comparison, is 24

The cost of living index of Zurich is highest in the world at 131

A question arises- Why is it so?

What is the reason that some countries are so expensive and some are so inexpensive?

Why is Switzerland, especially, so expensive?

We will find out about this in today's ground report

Come, let us see

Let us start with the basics

Do you see a common pattern between the developed and the developing countries in the world today?

Why are developed countries developed and why are developing countries still developing?

There is a generalized theory behind this

500 years ago, countries like India and China that are developing,

were richer in comparison with Europe

The reason, it is said, is that humanity, at that time,500 years ago revolved around agriculture

It was the time of Agriculture Revolution

But when the Industrial revolution came, it started in Europe

And after the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the economy of the world

started to revolve around the industries

It switched over from agriculture

It's the primary, secondary, tertiary sectors that we read about

The theory states that the climate was very comfortable in countries like India and China

and since the land was very fertile for agriculture, the people could lead their lives easily

But the climate in Europe was extremely harsh. It used to be very cold here

The climatic and environmental conditions forced the people to innovate

this is why, it is said that the Industrial revolution began in Europe and not India or China

And since the world economy today revolves around Industrial revolution,

then, the European countries obviously forged ahead

But there's still another question- Why is Switzerland, especially, so expensive?

We came across this while window shopping. Its cost breaks all records until now

We've seen so many expensive things until now

54,000 Euros. That is, approximately, half a crore rupees

-Yeah, that's like an average person's yearly salary in Germany

Someone who us an engineer, maybe

and two level salary of an engineer per year would be around 50,000, I think

-Yeah

-50,000 Euros

-Crazy!

What are the things Switzerland is famous for?

Their luxury watches, chocolates, highly developed tourism sector

What is common amongst all of them?

All of them are final end products that are highly valued

Switzerland exports all of them to other countries

In comparison, what does India export to the other countries?

Agricultural products

So, it is obvious that you will not get as much money by exporting agricultural products

as you would by exporting luxury, high quality products to the other countries

So, this is one reason

But you could say that going by this logic, all the European countries should be more expensive

What makes Switzerland more expensive than the rest of the European countries as well?

There are numerous expensive reasons for this

If you want to see and know more about Switzerland,

we have made 5-6 vlogs on the Vlog channel documenting out journey here in the past few days

and all the things that we saw

The vlogs are very exciting- you can check them out by clicking the link in the description below

There are a lot of rich people in this country

There are a lot of them

You wouldn't believe how many

According to statistics, Switzerland has the highest per capita of millionaires

that amounts to 11.8% of their adult population

That is every 10th person you come across on the street, statistically, is a millionaire

Imagine that!

This is where lies the specialty of Switzerland

It's not that all the millionaires are being born in this country by chance

This country attracted millionaires towards itself

What is the reason that the rich people from across the world want to come to Switzerland?

There are several reasons for this as well

One reason is that the tax here is very low. The country does not charge so much for businesses

So, what is the tax rate here?

The VAT rate of Switzerland is one of the lowest in the world

It is around 8% on most of the things. It is around 7.7% when you go eat in a restaurant

It is 3.8% for accommodation and services

and merely 2.5% on the basic necessity items

Compare it with your GST

Let us look at a small comparison between Delhi and Zurich

Where are the things costlier and by how much?

Eating a normal dinner in a common restaurant costs 300 rupees in Delhi and 2000 rupees in Zurich

Similarly, the cost of a one way ticket transportation cost is 30 rupees in Delhi and 300 rupees in Zurich

that's almost 10 times the cost!

The basic electricity cost is 4,000 rupees in Delhi

For an 85 sq kilometre apartment in Zurich, it is 16,000 rupees

Take a look at the rent

If you want to rent a one bedroom apartment in the City Centre in Delhi

It would cost around 18,000 rupees while in Zurich, it would cost more than 1 lakh 50,000 rupees

The average salary of the people in Delhi is 38,000 rupees

In Zurich, it is more than 5 lakh rupees per month

So, it is no wonder that so many people here are millionaires

And if the country is so expensive- they get a huge advantage

Whenever they go visit another country, they will always find things to be cheaper there

For the people living in Zurich, it is very cheap to travel around the rest of the world due to this

This is a huge advantage of living in an expensive country, if you are earning in the same currency

The second reason is that their banks are very safe. They have remained highly popular historically

for the people who wanted to export their money out of their countries and indulge in money laundering

You must already be aware about Swiss banks. So, their banks have enjoyed a high reputation historically

Third and the most important reason is that Switzerland is a country that has remained safe and stable historically

And all the rich people, obviously, would want to live in a stable country

They would not want to live in a country where there is an ongoing fight

or where the people are killing each other in the name of faith and there are riots all over uselessly

What did Switzerland have? Compare it with Germany

When Germany was being ruled by a dictator 60-70 years ago,

all these countries were involved in a world war

So, all the millionaires of Europe came to live in Switzerland because it was the only safe and neutral country

What effect would the flocking of millionaires have on the economy of the country?

Think about it

Look at these shops nearby. Imagine that millionaires came and settled in the vicinity

The shopkeepers would obviously think that they can sell their goods at higher prices because

since there are so many rich people living in and around that they would buy them

So they would raise the prices of the different products in their shops

The rent price would also increase. Since the millionaires can afford to pay more,

the landlords would charge more rent

So, basically if so many millionaires live in the same place,

the cost of living of that place would automatically go up as per the basic principle of economics

The cost of living index would be more at places where more rich people live

The same logic is applicable in the rest of the cities and the rest of the countries

Take the example of New York city. All of Hollywood wants to come live in New York

and this is why New York is one of the most expensive cities of the world

Take the example of our very own Mumbai

Since a lot of Bollywood lives in Mumbai, the cost of living of Mumbai is much higher

in comparison with the rest of the cities of India

Here's a pro-tip

If you want to save up money, go and live in places where the rich people don't want to

You will save up on a lot of money there because the cost of living would be quite low

So, these are the reasons why Switzerland is the world's most expensive country

I hope you would have liked this video. It was a different kind of a ground report

Do write down in the comments about the next ground report that you want to see and on what topic

I've already mentioned earlier- If you want to see more of Switzerland, you can check out the vlogs

The link to that channel is provided in the description below

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