2005-2006

 “Blue Book of Chinese Urban Competitiveness (2007)” was issued in Beijing on March 3rd, 2007.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 urban 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 for more than half a year. The theme of the report is “Brand, the most beautiful scenery of a city”. It is divided into the following parts: general report, research findings, framework, theme findings, and statistical rankings. It is the first time that original statistics are completely cited, and there are over 700 thousand words in the report.

Based on standard and objective data, the report measured and analyzed quantitatively 200 cities that are prefecture-level or above in the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan from six perspectives which are stated as follows: market scale, economic growth, productivity, conservation of resources, economic structure and the living conditions.

Table 1 Ranking of Comprehensive Competitiveness and Sub Items

Major findings

The urban competitiveness of cities in Taiwan and Zhejiang is declining, while that of Bohai coastal region is increasing. Considering comprehensively the ranking of China’s urban competitiveness of 2004, 2005 and 2006, we will find mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan have shown different characteristics and trends. Several cities in Taiwan have demonstrated a weakening trend, whose ranking went down in 2006 compared with 2005. The urban competitiveness of Zhejiang province has declined, while that of the Bohai coastal region is booming up.

The gap of urban competitiveness between different cities is widening, and cities in the southeast coastal area are more competitive than those in the northwest regions. Judging from the regional distribution of China’s city competitiveness, the overall structure in 2006 is still like this: the Pearl River Delta comes first, followed by the Yangtze River Delta, the Taiwan Strait region, the Bohai coastal region, northeastern part, central part, southwestern and northwestern part. The problem of unbalanced regional development is serious, and the disparity in competitiveness between each region is significant. The area of each region being concerned is becoming smaller and smaller. And the gap between cities within a region is becoming wider.

Cities of higher incomes are more competitive than that of lower income, but this law does not always work. The stability of urban competitiveness of a city depends a lot on its stage of development. High-income urban areas, such as Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and upper or middle-income cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities in the mainland enjoy stronger comprehensive competitiveness and higher rankings. On the other hand, the competitiveness of low income cities is not stable. As a result, their rankings are highly volatile.

Usually, large cities are more competitive than small cities, but there are many exceptions. From the aspect of scale, metropolises, and big cities are highly competitive with small fluctuations, while small and medium-size cities are at a relatively lower position in our country and their rankings varies much each year. Once again, some southeastern cities along the coast are also exceptions to this law.

By using both subjective and objective data of 210 indicators, this report has done a comparative and comprehensive analysis of sub items of competitiveness of 61 relatively competitive cities. The top 10 cities according to the rankings of sub items are listed in the following table:

Table 2: 2006 top 10 in China’s city explanative competitiveness

By analyzing surveys consisting of 108 questions concerning competitiveness and by comparing questionnaires filled by 6100 experts from 61 cities in 2002, 2004 and 2006, the report found out that the overall satisfaction has been increasing each year. Major problems are gradually improving. Communication and openness continue to be strengthened. Civilian culture is getting richer and more diverse. Market is more efficient, and the sense of credit is strengthened. The government is competent in planning, and its policies are reasonable and concrete. There is also a good external environment for development. However, in order to build up a service-oriented government, civil servants should improve themselves in terms of culture and ethics, and the government’s service ability need to be strengthened. Enterprises are faced with a lot of disadvantages. For example, the barriers to entry, shortages of external support of technology, funds and resources. In addition, organizations of intermediary services are seriously lagging behind the growth of enterprises. Enterprise operations rights are limited, and obstacles impeding start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises development still exist. Labor disputes happen very frequently in enterprises, and the relationship between employees and employers is deteriorated.

Through case studies, the report has drawn lessons from the practices of some cities’ activities of raising their competitiveness, and it picked up 11 best city-cases. They are Zhongshan—sticking to the principle of harmonization and the strategy of balanced development, Chengdu—combining urban and rural development and guiding the clustering process, Shenzhen—establishing innovative system and creating innovative atmosphere, Ordos—developing its unique advantage based on its nature resources, Tianjin Development Zone—innovating management methods and marketing its investment environment, Taizhou—encouraging private enterprises to start up and cultivate their own brands, Wuhu—supporting without hesitation and providing intimate services, Yangzhou—improving civilization level and build up safe networks, Hong Kong—letting the public transit system dominate urban transportation system with proper city planning and management, Macao—protecting historical heritage and integrating cultural resources, and Taichung—building inhabitable city and pursue sustainable development.

With the promotion of globalization and internet, the international , competition among cities is becoming much more intensified. Urban brands competition is the highest level of all forms of international competition. It is important to understand how the brand of a city would influence evaluations of potential tourists, investors, , co, nsumers and future citizens. It is even more important to know how to shape a city brand and fill the gap between the two if the image of a city does not match its brand. Therefore, the report chose urban brands as its theme.

Table 3: Indices of Chinese Urban Brands, 2006 (50 cities of Mainland China)

At the same time, the report found out that the general index of brand of more competitive cities is higher, and every city has its own shining sub brands. The brands of coastal cities grow fast, but the potential of inland brands is not fully developed. The images of resource-based cities should be improved immediately. And most cities’ efforts in building up their own brands are graduately changing their brand images.

The report also carried out case studies on the practices shaping urban brands, and it found out different cities have different strategies in shaping their unique brands. All of these are worth learning. For example, Hong Kong, Shaoxing, Nanjing, Xiamen and Nanchang are good at shaping business brands. Hangzhou, Ningbo, Shenzhen and Shanghai concentrate on shaping the tourism brand. Weihai, Chengdu, Nantong and Zhuhai spend much effort in shaping inhabitable-city brand. And Beijing, Qingdao, Chongqing and Quanzhou care most in shaping the brand of origins.