Chinese Cities of Opportunity 2021 was jointly released today by the China Development Research Foundation (CDRF) and PwC. According to the report, China’s urbanisation process is about to enter a new phase of high-quality development. City clusters will be the main model of urbanisation in the future. The rise of city clusters will accelerate the pace of regional integration, bringing new opportunities for China's economy.

The Chinese Cities of Opportunity report uses PwC’s city assessment tools. These apply ten criteria, including economic growth, society and people’s livelihoods, urban infrastructure, the natural environment, population, city governance and influence.

This year’s report increased the scope of selected cities to 47 by adding Changzhou, Dongguan, Huizhou, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing. The overall observation area covers most central and node cities of the major city clusters. The “9+2” cities in the Greater Bay Area are all fully covered.

The top four cities ranked in the report remain Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. The next ten cities are: Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Suzhou, Hong Kong, Changsha, Zhengzhou, Xiamen and Xi’an. The top-ranked cities are mostly central to major city clusters and are expanding. Labour and consumption require the influx of new populations, which brings challenges for the environment and stretches resources. Therefore, sustainable development of cities is also a key observation of the report.

The top five ranked cities for each of the ten criteria in the Chinese Cities of Opportunity 2021 report are listed below:

Graphic: Alice

Joanne Wang, PwC Guangdong Markets Leader said: “The Greater Bay Area city clusters have obvious advantages in technology, transportation, business environment, and sustainable development. In the future, core cities should be further utilized as a radiating and leading role. Build the Greater Bay Area into a world-class bay area and a world-class city cluster."