2005-2006

The Abstract of Annual Report on Urban Competitiveness (No.7)

“Blue Book of Chinese Urban Competitiveness 2009: Annual Report on Urban Competitiveness (No.7)" was issued in Beijing on April 14th 2009 and Hong Kong on the next day. With Professor Ni Pengfei from the Institute of Finance and Trade Economics, CASS being the principal, this report is jointly finished by experts in the field of city competitiveness from the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, including nearly one hundred experts from famous universities, national authoritative statistical departments and local scientific research institutes. The whole project lasted more than half a year.

2008 is an extraordinary year for China in that Chinese cities developed even faster in the international background of the unprecedented global financial crisis. Moving on together with fast-developing cities, the report achieved significant progress and brand new discovery by continuous theoretic, econometric and theme research. In the part of theoretic research, an important hypothesis—regional average GDP and its growth being an appropriate index to measure urban competitiveness—is proposed, and a concise econometric model was constructed.

By taking a comparative analysis of the urban competitiveness of 294 cities in China, the report got the rankings of comprehensive competitiveness and sub item competitiveness of each city. The top 10 cities are illustrated in the table below.

Table：Top 10 Cities on Comprehensive and Sub Item Competitiveness

Ranking	Comprehensive Competitiveness	General  Growth	Scale	Efficiency	Cost Advantage	Industrial Level	Life Quality
1	Xianggang	Eerduosi(tie)	Shanghai	Taibei	Xianggang	Beijing	Xianggang
2	Shenzhen	Heyuan(tie)	Xianggang	Xianggang	Haikou	Xianggang	Shanghai
3	Shanghai	Qingyuan(tie)	Beijing	Gaoxiong	Bozhou	Shenzhen	Aomen
4	Beijing	Tieling	Shenzhen	Xinzhu	Eerduosi	Shanghai	Shenzhen
5	Taibei	Liaoyuan	Guangzhou	Taizhong	Jinong	Taibei	Beijing
6	Guangzhou	Hailaer	Tianjin	Aomen	Taibei	Xinzhu	Taibei
7	Qingdao	Yingkou	Taibei	Shenzhen	Chengdu	Taizhong	Kelamay
8	Tianjin	Tonghua	Foshan	Dongguan	Gaoxiong	Gaoxiong	Xiamen
9	Suzhou	Baotou	Hangzhou	Dongying	Sanya	Aomen	Maansan
10	Gaoxiong	Bayannaoer	Dongguan	Tainan	Yan'an	Tainan	Xinzhu

 Generally speaking, the pattern of the competitiveness has not changed, southeast is still superior to northwest. The competitiveness of cities around Bohai Sea area is developing in the fastest way. The top 10 most competitive cities are located in Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, Bohai Sea and Taiwan. The mega-cities occupy the high-end of the city system and the medium-sized cities still have much room to develop. The comprehensive competitiveness has increased more than 10% in 95% of cities in China. In China’s mainland, Inner Mongolia is at the top of urban growth among all cities China, while the level of urban development of Jiangsu is the highest. However, the industrial development is generally at a low level, especially for those resource-based cities whose developmental level is even lower.

Based on overall comparative analysis of cities located in 6 major economic regions and 22 provinces, the report made the following discoveries.

The top 10 provinces and regions in urban competitiveness are: Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao region, Taiwan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Fujian, Liaoning, Hebei, Inner Mongolia and Hunan. The 10 cities whose Gini coefficients of urban competitiveness are the smallest arranging from small to big are: Hebei, Taiwan, Henan, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Hunan, Liaoning, Shandong, Jilin and Shanxi.

By comparing 51 important cities according to 12 sub item competitiveness indicators, it is found that:

The top 10 most competitiveness cities of human resources are: Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Macao, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chongqing and Tianjin.

The top 10 most competitiveness cities of Capital are: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tsingtao, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Macao and Nanjing.

The top 10 most competitiveness cities of Science and Technology are: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Tianjin, Changsha, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Chongqing.

The top 10 most competitiveness cities of industrial structure are: Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Beijing, Nanjing, Foshan, Macao and Taizhou.

The top 10 most competitiveness cities of infrastructure are: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tsingtao, Tianjin, Macao, Dalian and Xiamen.

The top 10 most competitiveness cities of are: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Changchun, Macao and Shenyang.

The top 10 most competitiveness cities of environment are: Suzhou, Weihai, Hong Kong, Hangzhou, Dongguan, Xiamen, Yangzhou, Wuxi, Dalian and Shaoxing.

The top 10 most competitiveness cities of culture are: Wenzhou, Shenzhen, Tsingtao, Taizhou, Shaoxing, Dongguan, Huizhou, Hong Kong, Yangzhou and Changsha.

The top 10 most competitiveness cities of institution are: Hong Kong, Zhongshan, Foshan, Suzhou, Wuxi, Dongguan, Yangzhou, Changzhou, Zhuhai and Macao.

The top 10 most competitiveness cities of governmental management are: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Macao, Suzhou, Tsingtao, Wuxi, Changzhou, Shenzhen and Yangzhou.

The top 10 most competitiveness cities of business management are: Foshan, Zhongshan, Hong Kong, Yangzhou, Wuxi, Tangshan, Shanghai, Hefei, Chengdu and Suzhou.

The top 10 most competitiveness cities of open are: Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Dongguan, Zhuhai, Tsingtao, Xiamen, Shanghai, Beijing and Dalian.

In the part of case study, by summarizing the experiences of different Chinese cities’ promoting their urban competitiveness, the report put forward the ten best cities. They are:

Suzhou:promoting the spirit of affinity and innovation, upholding the concept of delicacy, foresight and sagacity.
Beijing: utilizing advantages to create the first-class city, grasping opportunities to impel innovation.
Ningbo: comprehensively managing educational resources, making special industry clusters.
Baotou:improving eco-environment, building up green home.
Chongqing: changing the functions of government, optimizing the environment of business.
Nanchang:optimizing the mechanism of venture to encourage venturing among all citizens.
Guangzhou: using the unique industry-cluster platform to attract large projects.
Hangzhou: creating first-class environment, achieving high-grade city.
Nantong: promoting execution by “three-power project”, enhancing cohesion through “system mediation”.
Foshan: sticking to the concept of developing industries, creating the environment good for developing industries.

In the case study, by comparing each two of the 50 most important cities with the econometric data, the report evaluated the similarities and differences between each two cities and put forward the strategies for the competition and cooperation among cities.

Under the theme—“Cities: China getting into the World”, the report put China into a global coordinate system analyze its status, history and future, problem and suggestions.

Regarding to the global comprehensive urban competitiveness, Chinese cities are on a lower level among the cities in the world and the gap among the competitiveness of different cities are huge. Though the economic growth of Chinese cities is the fastest in the world, there is still a long way to go in finishing the mission of building up world-class cities in China. Hong Kong, the most competitive city in China, is the 26^th among 500 most competitive cities in the world. There are eight Chinese cities in the list of cities with the fastest economic growth. They are Baotou, Hohhot, Yantai, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Huizhou, Weifang and Wuhu. China occupies 40 seats in 50 fastest growing cities.

Considering the degree of the urban network development, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei are among the first class cities and become important nodes in the global network. Among those cities, Hong Kong and Beijing are in the top ten among 624 global cities and they are sub-nodes in global urban network and beta level in the third class global cities. Shanghai and Taipei are the 19^th and 22rd among 624 cities and they are important transit nodes in the global urban network and at gamma level. Guangzhou, Chengdu, Tianjin, Nanjing are becoming more and more important in global urban network. However, the gap between most Chinese cities and European and American cities in the overall degree of network development is still huge.

Based on the global competitiveness analysis on Chinese cities, it is urged that the global competition strategy for Chinese cities must be thought over. And the strategies should cover the following aspects, that is, formulating a national urban development outline looking forward to 2030, constructing a multi-level and outgoing Chinese cities system containing top global cities, implementing strategies of key areas’ breakthrough, great powers’ support, cost advantage, industries’ driving force, openness stimulus, gradual promotion, intensive growth, putting people at the priority, high-tech innovation, and sustainable development etc.

This Blue Book, published by Social Sciences Academic Press, is the 7th Annual Report put forward by Chinese Urban Competitiveness Project. The report has such feature as perspective theme, object comment, rich and abundant comment, and concrete data. And it is very valuable to be taken as reference by different levels of government, especially those urban governments, native and foreign enterprise, relative research institute, and the public.