Statistics unveiled by Beijing Statistics Bureau on February 27 showed that in 2003 among the five metropolises including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing and Guangzhou, Beijing got the second place in terms of economic increase but the last in terms of growth speed.

The statistics also recorded that the local gross production in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing and Guangzhou posted respectively at 361.19b yuan, 238.69 billion yuan, 625.08 billion yuan, 225.01 billion yuan and 346.66b yuan in 2003.

The economies of the five cities presented a three-tiered structure. Shanghai, with its over 600 billion local GDP, stands high at the top, Beijing and Guangzhou, with about 350 billion yuan of local GDP, swayed in the middle and Tianjin and Chongqing, with about 230 billion yuan economic increments, were at the bottom stratum.

Calculated on the comparable prices, the local gross production rose 10.5 percent, 14.5 percent, 11.8 percent, 11.4 percent and 15 percent respectively in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing and Guangzhou as against the previous year.

In despite of the two-digital growth for all the five, there is still one thing arresting special attention. In the second layer, although Beijing kept high speed development, Guangzhou, with its faster pace of economic growth than Beijing from 2001 to 2003, is catching up with Beijing and even indicates a potential of outrunning Beijing in the next few years.

According to findings unveiled recently by Niu Wenyuan, head of 100-plus experts who prepared an in-depth urban development report for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), the capital largely lags behind the country's economic hub of Shanghai when it comes to looking at the capacity for urban development. And even the southern city of Shenzhen has the same capability as Beijing.

The findings were similar to a separate report undertaken by a team led by Ni Pengfei from the Institute of Finance and Trade Economics, which is also under the CASS.

After analyzing the comprehensive competitiveness of 200 Chinese sample cities at or above the prefectural level, Ni's team found that China's top 10 most competitive cities were Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Ningbo, Nanjing and Wenzhou.

But a year before, Beijing ranked first among some 200 cities for its competitive power in terms of its workforce and science and technology.

The results of Ni's team were exclusively released by Hunan Satellite TV Station Monday.

According to Niu's team, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Qingdao, Chengdu are in the top 10 of China's 50 biggest cities.

The Chinese mainland has 668 cities and more than 20,000 towns, where more than 39 percent of the nation's 1.3 billion people live.

Shanghai takes leads in overall economic output, urban infrastructure, basic resources, level of industrialization and many other indicators.

And some Beijing residents have conceded that Shanghai is the nation's top city.

"I've heard a lot of comments from people all around the country about Shanghai's impressive economic performance and its potential," said Xiao Yu, an office worker in Beijing's Chaoyang District, after seeing the reports.

But Shanghai is not the clear-cut leader, according to the Niu report.

In terms of learning capability, Beijing beats Shanghai because of its group of renowned universities, research institutions, think-tanks and international research and development centers.

Beijing also has the most land line phones, mobile phones and Internet users. Shenzhen also beats Shanghai in this regard.

Shenzhen leads the pack when it comes to social security measures.

At the ceremony to announce the research results held March 1, Niu said his team has drawn up a framework involving a trio of central metropolitan areas, seven economic belts and a number of central cities with common features to cope with urban China's sprawl.

The metropolitan areas are the groups of cities around Bohai Bay, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. They will serve as economic centers boosting the development of their surrounding areas.

The areas will contain more than half of China's population while accounting for 80 percent of the national economy and 90 percent of China's industry output value. About 95 percent of the nation's trade volume will be produced there.

Also at the ceremony, National People's Congress Standing Committee Vice-Chairman Jiang Zhenghua said China's current low degree of urbanization, in addition to an insufficient urban population and economic scale in many large cities, has limited its economic development and impact on its competitiveness China's urbanization rate is expected to rise from the current 39 percent to 75 percent within the next 50 years.

Within the next five decades, the population in cities and towns will reach between 1.1 billion and 1.2 billion, while a well-organized and complementary "urban system" will be set up, the Niu report said.

(People's Daily March 4, 2004)