Muscat ranked second-best city for expats in GCC

Muscat: The Omani capital Muscat has been ranked second in the Arab world in the index of the best cities in the world for expats for the year 2020 by the German network Internations, headquartered in Munich. Founded in 2007 by Malte Zeeck, Philipp von Plato and Christian Leifeld, Internations, is the largest global expat network of around 4 million members and is present with communities in 420 cities worldwide.

The network said on its website that Muscat ranked 14th in the world in the index of best cities for expatriate living. Affordable and easily available healthcare, along with abundant entertainment options and great weather contributed to Muscat ranking high on the list.

Annual survey

First in the list of best cities as ranked by Internations in their ranking list was Valencia and tenth was Abu Dhabi - which was rated the best city in the GCC region. Expat City ranking is based on annual Expat Insider survey by Internations, which it has been part of since 2017. This year more than 15,000 expatriates representing 173 nationalities and living in 181 countries provided information on various aspects of expat life.

In addition to satisfaction of life in their host countries, respondents were also invited to share their opinions of the city they are currently living in when it comes to local career opportunities, the urban environment and the ease of making friends.

The methodology for choosing the best and the worst for expatriates was through rating more than 25 different aspects of urban life abroad on a scale of one to ten by survey participants.

Oman was also named as a country not affected by terrorism with zero score for the eighth time in a row in the annual Global Terrorism Index, now in its eighth year, developed by leading think tank Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP) Australia. The annual Global Terrorism Index provides the most comprehensive resource on global terrorism trends.