On October 21, 2024, Kearney, a leading global management consulting firm, released the 2024 Global Cities Report and announced a comprehensive ranking of the leading global cities in the Global Cities Index (GCI). Chinese cities rose evidently in the ranking and nearly 70% of the 31 cities on the list rose by 5 and more places. Among them, Nanjing was particularly eye-catching as it climbed by 10 spots to 83th place in the world and ranked 7th in the Chinese mainland.
Kearney’s release of the Global Cities Report started in 2008. Its Global Cities Index highlights the concept of “city” itself in comparison to the Global Innovation Index (GII) released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Global Liveability Index (GLI) released by The Economist. GCI measures 31 metrics across five dimensions, namely business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement, covering political, economic and cultural fields.
In light of the macro changes in the global landscape, three new assessment criteria are added to this year’s GCI, namely open immigration policies, Internet speed and data center presence, reflecting talent mobility and digital construction in these cities.
The report shows that the city cluster in the Yangtze River Delta has the most cities on the list among all city clusters in the world. The main cities in the cluster have seen a huge rise in the GCI ranking this year. The city cluster in the Yangtze River Delta takes the lead in terms of business activity, cultural experience and human capital. As industrial supporting facilities continuously improve, there are closer exchanges and interconnections among cities. In particular, the synergy between provincial capitals and neighboring cities will deepen in fields such as automobiles, new energy, high value-added industrial products, and consumer goods, thereby contributing to the overall prosperity of the city cluster. After ranking fluctuations in the past two years, Nanjing has ushered in a significant rise in GCI ranking this year.
In recent years, Nanjing has focused on serving the province’s efforts to build a two-way open hub with global convergence power by thriving to become a metropolis that leads Jiangsu to participate in globalization. It has vigorously enhanced the carrying capacity of two-way opening while fully leveraging the dual strengths of the national open strategy of “free trade + services sector opening up” to promote stable and improved performance in two-way investments. Efforts have been stepped up to build an international consumption center city and expand the influence of major IPs such as the Nanjing International Consumption Festival. It has also gathered forces to develop the debut economy and promote the integrated development of business, travel, culture, sports, and health. In order to create an international business environment, the city has continuously improved international services, simplified customs clearance at ports in an overall manner, and optimized the services with Nanjing’s characteristics.
