This year, HSBC asked over 7,000 ex pats in 37 countries how they felt about the attractiveness of their host countries from a financial, quality of life and child-raising perspective. The results – many of which may seem surprising – were released early this month.

China, Germany and Singapore were the most attractive countries overall, in that order. Australia and Canada filled 5th and 6th positions respectively. Hong Kong was 10th and the USA 12th. New Zealand was 14th, well ahead of the UK, at 22nd, and Ireland at 24th.

Not bad perhaps, but well behind those competitive Aussies. One caveat is that we don’t know the sample size for New Zealand, or its ex pat composition.

So what about the component details?

Switzerland achieved the highest overall ranking by ex pats financially, as reflected in the proportion earning over US$200,000 a year, average disposable income and satisfaction with its economy. China was 2nd, Germany 7th, and Singapore 9th. Australia was 17th and New Zealand 29th of the 37 countries.

Ex pats presumably don’t live in New Zealand for the money. Their rank for disposable income was second to bottom of the 37 countries. Australia’s rank was 15th.

On a better note, resident ex pats’ level of satisfaction with the economy put New Zealand at 22nd, compared to Australia’s 19th. On this measure, we were ahead of the USA and the nine included European countries, bar Germany and Switzerland.

What about the ex pats’ experiences in setting up in the host country, integrating into the community and overall quality of life? Surely friendly, clean, green New Zealand can shine here? Apparently not. We ranked only 16th for ease of setting up and 14th for quality of life. Troublingly, we ranked only 27th for ease of integration. Our overall rank was 18th. Australia’s was 5th, its lowest ranking being 14th for integration. Thailand was top overall, China 3rd, and Singapore 6th. For once, we did outrank Hong Kong (25th).

But take heart. We rated 4th out of 24 countries for raising ex pats’ children, behind Germany, Singapore and France. The Australians found their place behind us at 7th. Within this overall ranking we were behind only Australia for child health and South Africa for the overall childhood experience. In the latter respect we were 1st ranked for making ex pats’ children more outgoing and improving their quality of life and 3rd for giving them a wider diversity of friends.