A City Development Research Team led by Prof Zhilin Yang, Associate Head and Professor of Department of Marketing, has released a China City Development Report. The report, published in December of last year, provides an overall view of the performance of 287 mainland cities in 2013 and aims to promote more sustainable development across a range of industries.
The index compares five sub-categories; environment, economy, infrastructure, culture and education, along with social insurance. The results showed that Shenzhen ranked first overall, achieving first place in the first three of these sub-categories and second place in the last two.
Dongguan, Beijing, Xiamen, Shanghai, Zhuhai, Guangzhou, Zhongshan, Foshan and Nanjing ranked second to tenth respectively. Six of the top ten cities were from Guangdong province, whilst the remaining four cities were Beijing, Shanghai, and from Fujian and Jiangsu provinces.
“With the rapid development of China cities, there is an urgent need for them to maintain sustainability and remain competitive.” said Prof. Yang explaining his rationale for the project. “Our City Development Index (CDI), which includes City Innovation Index, thus intends to address every aspect of societal and economic environment of science and technology development in China. By developing a reliable and valid index via publicly available sources and first-hand data through survey research, we are able to offer useful information for local governments to guide their policies and decision making; to provide research findings and CDI-related products to firms, investors, and other organizations in order to help them find suitable regions or industries in which to invest; and to furnish useful second-hand data for researchers who are interested in China markets.”
The research project is supported and subsidised by the Knowledge Transfer Fund from the UGC KT Earmark Fund, managed by Office of the Vice-President (Research & Technology).
Prof. Yang is one of three scholars who received a Certificate of Merit in the 2013 CityU Research Excellence Awards.
For a detailed report of the project in Chinese, please visit Office of the Vice-President website.