China Core Cities & Metropolitan Area Development Index 2019 released

6. Business environment

The top three cities in the business environment category are Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. The cities ranking fourth to 10th are Shenzhen, Chengdu, Nanjing, Tianjin, Wuhan, Hangzhou, and Chongqing. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Beijing, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Hangzhou have increased.

The business environment is a major item that measures a city's capability in supporting communication economy and transaction economy. It evaluates not only business support, but also a city's policy support. It is particularly worth mentioning that the major item also takes into consideration urban transportation as an important part of it.

Thus, this major item includes three sub-items, industrial park support, business support, and urban transportation. They are gauged by 10 sets of index data, including national industrial parks, free trade areas, average salary of employees, the number of employees in company-oriented service sector, starred hotels, top international restaurants, passenger transport volume per 10,000 people, mileage of urban rail transit, urban sidewalk and bicycle path density, and urban public transit.

(1) Industrial park support

Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Xiamen are the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Haikou, Tianjin, Chongqing, and Xi'an. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen, Haikou, and Tianjin have increased.

(2) Business support

Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen are the top three in this sub-item. The top 10 core cities also include Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Nanjing, and Chongqing. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, the rankings of Shenzhen and Nanjing have increased.

(3) Urban transportation

Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou are the top three in this sub-item. The cities ranking fourth to 10th also include Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chengdu, Nanjing, Lanzhou, Hangzhou, and Urumqi. Compared with 2018, among the top 10 core cities, Beijing has replaced Shanghai in the top spot, and the rankings of Chengdu, Lanzhou, and Hangzhou have increased.