FOLLOWING Shanghai and Hong Kong, Shenzhen was ranked third among all cities in China for competitiveness in 2016, according to a list of Chinese cities’ competitiveness recently unveiled in Hong Kong.

    The list was created and released by China Institute of City Competitiveness. The institute’s director, Gui Qiangfang, said at a media conference last week that the list was made by analyzing and comparing 358 cities in China over the course of last year.

    The other six cities ranked from the fourth to 10th place were Beijing, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Tianjin, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Nanjing. Shanghai has taken first place on the list for four consecutive years.

    The institute believes that comprehensive competitiveness is a city’s overall capacity to integrate and allocate its economic, social, environmental and cultural recourses in both regional and international competition of resource allocation.

    The institute was established in Hong Kong back in 1998 as one of the earliest academic institutions to study the competitiveness of cities. It released its first ranking of Chinese cities in 2002.

    The evaluating system ranks the cities based on four major indices — actual strength, potential strength, vitality and capacity.  (Zhang Qian)