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Researchers at comparison website MoneySuperMarket examined house prices, rental costs, salaries, unemployment rates, and life satisfaction.

Cardiff came top of 12 cities, having scored well on all factors apart from salaries.

It had the lowest cost of living, at £359 per week.

It also had one of the lowest unemployment rates, at 8.1%.

Residents have also been feeling significantly better off over the last year, with disposable incomes growing by 3.7%, said the comparison website.

Cardiff replaces Bristol, which came top of the table last year.

Living costs in Bristol rose to £430 a week, while growth in disposable incomes fell from 3.3% in 2013 to 2.8% in 2014.

Belfast and Bradford both saw big improvements, rising to second and third in the table.

It was one of a series of measures announced at an economic summit in London, attended by Chinese vice premier Ma Kai.

"The more Chinese tourists the merrier," the chancellor said.

He also announced deals worth £2.6bn between Chinese and British firms.

The visa refund plan would apply to Chinese tourists visiting Britain in organised tour groups.

The government will also exempt approved tour groups from needing a transit visa, making it easier for Chinese tourists to use British airports as hubs for international travel.

"I think that will strengthen British aviation, strengthen British airports as hubs for direct routes to China, so that people use British airports as a jumping off point for trips around Europe," Mr Osborne said.

"Of course one of the really exciting things we see all around is more and more Chinese tourists coming to the United Kingdom and they are very, very welcome," he added.

More flights between the two countries have also been agreed and £1.6m will be spent marketing Britain in China.

National tourism agency VisitBritain welcomed the visa plan, describing it as "the perfect catalyst to enable Chinese tourists to not only visit Britain, but travel right across the country".

Other deals agreed include British businesses helping to build Chinese websites and rail infrastructure as well as Chinese investment in areas such as UK shipping, golf courses, and healthcare.

On a yearly basis, they rose by 5%.

Increases in spending came from car sales, up 9.5% from August 2013, and healthcare stores, up 8.1% from last year.

Retail sales account for 70% of the US economy and analysts said the figures pointed to stronger overall economic growth.

"With further jobs gains, rises in income growth and a loosening in credit conditions in the pipeline, consumption growth should strengthen in the fourth quarter and in to next year too, " said Paul Dales, US economist at Capital Economics.

July's figure was revised upwards to a 0.3% rise.

A separate consumer survey, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, showed more optimism, with the index rising to 84.6 in September, from 82.5 in August.

The general pick up in the US economy has prompted discussion as to when the Federal Reserve might begin to start raising interest rates. The US central bank is next scheduled to meet 16-17 September.

Chris Williamson, economist at Markit, said the retail sales figures "add to the likelihood of the first rise in interest rates occurring earlier than mid-2015".

"Both the official and survey data therefore point to ongoing strong momentum of the US economy in the third quarter, suggesting that the recent slowing in non-farm payroll growth seen in August may prove temporary and that policy makers will be encouraged that further strong job creation will be sustained in coming months," he added.

The US economy added just 142,000 jobs in August, far fewer than analysts' had been expecting.

Sir Tim Clark told the BBC there had been evidence of weapons for weeks.

But he claimed those in the know didn't share it with most of the carriers flying across the country.

If the airlines had all been told, he suggests, the industry would probably have by-passed the danger zone.

And he added that some carriers did appear to know because they were avoiding the area, but they didn't share the information.

It's widely believed that a missile downed Malaysian flight MH17 on 17th July, killing all 298 people on board.

Planes had been cleared to fly in the area as long as they stayed above a certain height, and a report earlier this week highlighted the fact that three other large passenger jets were in the same area at roughly the same time as the Malaysian flight.

Sir Tim said: "There was evidence that these missiles had been on site, in situ for a number of weeks beforehand.

"Emirates did not know of that fact, and I don't think many others did. Had we known that, we would probably have reacted in a manner that would have seen a complete avoidance of Ukrainian airspace, probably as an industry.

"We have a concern that information was known by certain stakeholders... and should have been passed... at least to the industry, to the organisations that regulate the industry.

"We understand now that certain carriers were aware of that and had already taken avoidance action."

British Airways was among several airlines that had been avoiding Ukraine for weeks. But in a recent BBC interview, the overall boss of the company, Willie Walsh, said that decision was based on information that was publicly available at the time.

Sir Tim is calling for an information "clearing house" to be set up, that can warn all airlines, quickly, if there are any new threats in an area.

At the moment it's down to each individual airline to decide whether to travel over a war zone, based on information from local air traffic control and from their own government. And carriers aren't obliged to pass on the information to each other.

Sir Tim, who is one of the most respected voices in the industry, also says that a "Yes" vote for Scotland would heighten the need for a new runway in the south of England.

Although he made clear that he didn't want to get involved in the politics of the decision, he told us: "Clearly, if they do become independent they will develop their own civil aviation strategies, they will probably develop Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. But therefore there is more impetus required for the remaining parts of the UK to develop their aviation strategy, to fill a gap."

Like so many others in the business world, the Emirates' president says that doing nothing is not an option, be it expansion at Heathrow, Gatwick, or even at the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson's preferred location, in the Thames Estuary.

After four decades in the business Sir Tim says he's seen airport expansion plans come and go, but there really does seem to be an urgency to do something this time,

"I witnessed the Maplin Sands episodes in the 70s. Clearly there wasn't a buy-in to the level that I believe there is today. When you see the likes of Mayor Johnson, you may not agree with his Estuary project... the fact is that a person like this, who is politically, extremely powerful, he has championed this cause, he has raised the profile of the need for London and the South East to have more access."

Maplin Sands was another proposal to build a floating airport in the Thames Estuary. They'd even begun building the place, but it was swiftly ditched in 1974 by the new Labour government in the wake of the oil crisis.

Finally, Sir Tim made the point that the UK needs to grow all of its regional airports too, including Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle and Cardiff, which he described as having great potential.