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 United States and the United Arab Emirates 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 the 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 United Kingdom 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.

HSBC said that Hong Kong-based expats have the highest salaries in the world, with almost half earning more than 100,000 pounds per annum. It found that 52 per cent expats spend more on food, while 49 per cent spend more on shopping.

In a separate study by global consultancy Mercer, Moscow followed by Tokyo, London, Oslo and Seoul, emerged as the top five cities in terms of cost of living for expats. Indian cities -- Mumbai and New Delhi were ranked at 48th and 52^nd in the 'Worldwide Cost of Living 2008' survey, while Chennai and Bangalore could not even make it to the top 100 cities.

Besides, expats in India earn the second highest salaries globally, with about 42 per cent earning more than 100,000 pounds annually, the HSBC report said. However, the Brazilian, Irish and Australian expats are the wealthiest in the world with 40 per cent of them earning over 100,000 pounds annually.

The top countries for saving included India, the UAE and Singapore.

For accommodation, Singapore tops the list, where almost three quarters of expats said the quality of their accommodation had improved since moving away from home. This was followed by expats living in the US (61 per cent) and Belgium (59 per cent).

The UK was identified as the most expensive expat location for accommodation, with more than three quarters (85 per cent) of expats living in the UK revealing that their living costs had increased. India emerged as the cheapest country, with only one-fifth of expats living in the country claiming their costs of accommodation had increased.

In the longevity ranking, Netherlands came on the top, followed by Germany, the USA, Belgium, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UAE, Canada, Jersey, the UK, France, Spain, China, Australia and India.

Besides, the UAE emerged as the most luxurious destination, followed by Singapore and India, while the UK was ranked the least luxurious.