Shanghai breaches top 10 city list

Shanghai has posted stronger urban competitiveness to rank beyond Hong Kong for the first time and make the top 10 global cities.

In the Global Urban Competitiveness report, issued by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the United Nations Human Settlement Programme, five Chinese cities ranked in the top 20, two more than last year.

Of the five cities, Shenzhen came 4th, Shanghai 10th, Hong Kong 13th, Beijing 17th, and Guangzhou was ranked 18th.

Among the top 20 cities, nine were from North America, eight were Asian , while the other three were in Western Europe.

The report covered 1,006 cities throughout the world. New York, London and Singapore were the top three, followed closely by Shenzhen.

Besides the five Chinese cities in the top 20, another 15 made the top 100.

The report also studied urban sustainable competitiveness, "the ability of a city to enhance its advantages in economy, society, ecology, innovation and global connection, and to seek systematic optimization to meet the complex and advanced welfare utility of its citizens".

In this aspect, five American cities, nine European cities, and six Asian cities made the top 20.

Cities in China still have some gaps in sustainable competitiveness compared with those in developed Western countries. In spite of that, 31 Chinese cities ranked among the top 200, "indicating that the sustainable competitiveness of cities in the country has steadily improved."