City wins top marks in commercial center survey

By Han Tianyang (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-10 08:41

Dalian has scored top marks in its region in the first ever China Financial Center Index (CFCI), according to figures released by the Comprehensive Development Institute (CDI) earlier this year. The CDI is a State Council-authorized research and advisory body and will now produce the index on an annual basis.

The survey saw Dalian ranked as the number one financial center in the Bohai Bay Rim are and in the northeast region of China. Overall it was designated as a "core region financial center", the second tier in the CFCI rankings system.

As part of its research, the CDI selected 24 provincial capitals and other specially designated cities and ranked them against five different indices, including overall financial industry performance, financial institution strength, financial market size and the financial ecological environment.

The CFCI also factored in relevant data on industrial development, financial development and urban development, as well as taking advice from a number of professionals in the government sector and several financial institutions. This allowed them to formulate a dynamic evaluation index system, appropriate for the evaluation of the competitiveness of the domestic financial centers.

The research divided the domestic financial centers into three tiers, according to the CFCI's grading system. The cities in level one, with CFCI scores above 60, were named "national financial centers" and included Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen.

Cities in the second tier- those scoring between 30-60- were defined as "core region financial centers" and included Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Dalian, Ningbo, Nanjing and Tianjin.

Fifteen cities, including Shenyang, scored below 30 and were designated as "sub-region financial centers", the third and lowest tier in the CFCI system,

The final results in the CFCI survey ranked the 24 cities in the following order: Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Dalian, Ningbo, Nanjing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Xi'an, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Chengdu, Xiamen, Changsha, Fuzhou, Ji'nan, Kunming, Qingdao, Chongqing, Shijiazhuang, Harbin, and Changchun.

The CDI was established in 1989 and approved by the State Council. It is now the largest and most successful body in China's research and consulting industry. The nationally respected economist, Fan Gang, is its current president.