China endures great hardships to break new ground, as great works usually need persistence and long time to build. The first decade of the 21st century is the ten years marking the rise of Chinese cities, and the ten years when the Annual Report on China's Urban Competitivenessis initiated and developed. The annual reports study Chinese cities and are growing up unceasingly accompanying with the rapid rise of Chinese cities. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Annual Report on China's Urban Competitiveness, the press release of 2012 Blue Book of Urban Competitiveness was held on May 21, 2012 by National Academy of Economic Strategy, Center for City and Competitiveness, and Social Sciences Academic Press of CASS in Beijing collaboratively. On that conference, 2012 Blue Book of Urban Competitiveness: Annual Report on China's Urban Competitiveness(hereinafter as the Report) went to the public. The Report is completed collaboratively for over six months by nearly one hundred city competitiveness experts from domestic famous universities, national authoritative department of statistics and local research institutes from China mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, under the leadership of Dr. Ni Pengfei, a researcher of National Academy of Economic Strategy of CASS and the director of Center for City and Competitiveness of CASS.

Honorable guests attending the meeting include Gao Peiyong, the dean and the commissioner of National Academy of Economic Strategy of CASS, Tao Siliang, executive vice president of the China Association of Mayors, Niu Wenyuan, State Council counselor and Chief scientist of CASS, Hou Yongzhi,Head of Regional Development Department of Development Research Center of State Council, Hao Shouyi, Professor of Nankai University, Xie Shuguang, president of Social Sciences Academic Press, Park Keunm-Tae, president of CJ Group China Headquarters, Chuai Zhenyu, secretary of the party committee ofNational Academy of Economic Strategy of CASS, Wang Liming - deputy editor of Social Science in China Press, and KimJung-hun, vice president ofCJ Group China Headquarters.

A number of media, such as the Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily, CCTV, Guangming Daily, Phoenix Satellite Television, Hong Kong Commercial Daily, Twenty-First Century Report, China Social Sciences, Chinese Social Sciences Weekly, Economic Research, and Finance & Trade Economics, attended the conference, and Chinese Network (China.org.cn), conduct live broadcasting of the meeting.

The leaders and experts attending the meeting review the development and changes in Chinese cities since theAnnual Report on China’s Urban Competitiveness was published, recall the difficult process of researching competitiveness of Chinese cities, fully affirm the guidance, motivation and decision-making reference functions of Annual Report on China’s Urban Competitiveness in the development of Chinese cities, and propos pertinent suggestions for improving the Report in the future. In addition, in-depth discussion is carried out about the important issues raised in the tenth report.

The Report conducts comparison and pattern analysis on the competitiveness index of 294 cities of China in 2011 based on a comprehensive index system and results obtained by mature measurement methodology, and finds that:

The top 10 cities in 2011 are Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Qingdao, and Changsha. They are distributed in 5 regions: Pearl River Delta, the Circum-Bohai Sea region, Yangtze River Delta, the Central region and Taiwan. The overall administrative level of them is high. Compared with 2010, the overall gap between the top 10 cities in 2011 is narrowed and the rankings of them have been changed greatly.

In 2011, among the top 50 cities in terms of comprehensive urban competitiveness, 70% of them were in the eastern coastal region and the remaining 30% were prefecture-level cities. Foshan, Suzhou and Wuxi City were the top 3 cities among prefecture-level cities. Compared with 2010, some changes had taken place in the top 50 cities in 2011: the number of cities in the middle of China increased and prefecture-level cities grew rapidly. From 2010 to 2011, Chengdu had the most ranking increase among the sub-provincial cities, up eight places. Among provincial capital cities, Nanchang had the most ranking increase by up 10 places, and among prefecture-level cities, Nantong had the most ranking increase by up 7 places.

The overall pattern of urban competitiveness in 2011: the eastern cities were stronger than the western cities on the whole, and individual cities in the western region had great competitiveness. Cities in the southeast region had higher rankings in the overall competitiveness, mostly in the list of top 100. Compared with 2010, 2011 had the change in the overall pattern: gap between cities further narrowed.

The present Report, which is the tenth Annual Report on China’s Urban Competitiveness, reviews the study and practice of Chinese urban competitiveness with “Competitiveness: endure great hardships to break new ground” as its subject.

The report analyzes the overall competitiveness index of 294 cities in last ten years and finds that, the overall gap over the past decade is reduced and difference within region is increased. The internal difference of the southeast coastal areas is narrowed while maintaining the leading position. The competitiveness of inland cities has been significantly promoted. Disparity in central cities is serious and rise of central cities is rapid. Large cities are still taking the dominant positions and small and medium-sized cities are in intense competition. Boosting of prefecture-level cities runs ahead of higher-level cities.

After comparing the overall competitiveness index of 294 cities over the past decade, the Report finds that the top 50 cities that had the fastest speed in enhancing their competitiveness include: Erdos (1), Baotou (2), Sanya (3), Yingkou (4), Yulin (5), Dongguan (6), Tongchuan (7), Tianjin (8), Chongqing (9), Cangzhou (10), Songyuan (11), Qinzhou (12), Hohhot (13), Qingyuan (14), Wuhai (15), Hefei (16), Changsha (17), Beijing (18), Dalian (19), Dongying (20), Yantai (21), Shenyang (22), Fangchenggang (23), Qingyang (24), Xinyu (25), Tangshan (26), Suzhou (27), Wuhu (28), Tongling (29), Zhoushan (30) Qingdao (31), Siping (32), Foshan (33), Liaoyuan (34), Rizhao (35), Nantong (36), Yangzhou (37), Huaian (38), Wuhan (39), Changzhou (40) Yan'an (41), Chengdu (42), Wuxi (43), Ma’anshan (44), Hangzhou (45), Guangzhou (46), Yulin (47), Taizhou (48), Changchun (49), and Yueyang (50).

The Report analyzes a number of important factors involving in urban competitiveness by the usage of the rich data accumulated over the past ten years about urban competitiveness and the utilization of a variety of quantitative analysis methods, and finds that:

Over the past decade, the factors affecting the competitiveness of cities are changing in theses aspects: from general location factors to talent core elements, from infrastructure hardware elements to software elements including government management. While the change rate of talent competitiveness is the largest positive factor in increasing change rate of comprehensive urban competitiveness level. Whereas, the specific economic system, corporate governance and the ecological environment still contribute less to city's comprehensive competitiveness.

Financial agglomeration effect on the economy of the local and surrounding areas is complex. Comparatively speaking, the development of regional financial centers can drive the regional economic growth more than thenational financial center. Compared to the science and technology investment and output, city technology conversion capability has a greater impact on the city efficiency.

With respect to the relationship between the industrial structure and economic growth, the improvement of industrial structure pushes economic growth. Economic growth, however, has no significant effect on the improvement of industrial structure. On the relationship between economic development and ecological environment, an obvious inverted U shape curve relationship exists between environment and income on the level of city.

Complex relationship exists between business culture and technological innovation: based on the overall conditions of 54 cities, innovative atmosphere and technological innovation have the most positive correlation and the communication ethics and technological innovation have the most negative correlation. Causal relationship exists between institutional innovation and economic growth. The factors including extent of openness, free flow of urban and rural elements, market-oriented reform of financial system, and denationalization have a positive correlation with economic growth. Institutional factors contrary to market economy, such as economic regulation, tax burden, and local government intervention, are negatively correlated with economic growth, which has been proven by the empirical findings.

The Report reviews urban development and urbanization in China over the past decade and points out that, the past decade is the ten years when China is rising. The position of cities as a center creating wealth is more and more prominent and significant. In 2010, the regional GDP of prefecture-level or above cities (municipal districts) accounted for 65.81% of the national GDP, 15.6% up on that of 2001. Society undertakings have made significant progress. But the transformation of urban economic development mode had little success.

The Report finds that, in the past decade, China made a magnificent scale of urbanization, and urban population scale and increase grew very rapidly. It is indicated by the fifth census data that population living in urban areas was 455.94 million by the end of 2010, accounting for 36.09% of the total population. The sixth census data shows that urban population was 665.57 billion in 2010, accounting for 49.68% of the total population of the country. This represented a 13.59% increase in comparison with that of 2000. Over the past ten years, the total urban population had an increase of 210.963 million, nearly 0.5 times of entire urban population for the past ten years. The urban land use scale and growth rate increased even more rapidly. In 2001, the urban area of prefecture-level or above cities was 489,421 km2, of this, there was 17,605 km2 of built-up area. In 2010, the land area of prefecture-level or above cities was 628,573 km2, of which built-up area was 31,766 km2. Built-up area almost doubled and the urban system and the spatial distribution changed significantly. The city cluster (belt) with big cities as centers has been gradually formed and expanded. In the eastern coastal areas of China, multi-level of urban agglomerations with complementary functions surrounding megacity has come into being, where the base for China’s reform and opening-up and system innovation is located. This is the growth pole for the rapid and stable development of national economy over the past 20 years.

According to the Report, the pattern of urbanization for the past ten years is unsustainable. The main problem of urbanization lies in the incomplete urbanization of population. The urbanization rate by the resident population has reached 50%, but only 33% by permanent urban resident population. The land has been excessively urbanized. For the ten years, urban population increased by 0.5 times and the built-up area almost doubled. A large number of populations moved into central cities. Consequently, the development of medium-sized cities was relatively slow and small towns were dispersed and imperfect.

The urbanization problems of the old pattern caused many problems, including unbalanced spatial structure, further widened gap of development level between central cities and marginal areas, imbalanced industrial structure and over-exuberance real estate industry, imbalance in the demand structure and insufficient domestic demand, out-of-balance between element structure and economic momentum, and the development of cities mainly relied on the consumption of land and other resources.

The Report says that a city with sustainable competitiveness is a knowledge city, an ecological city, a personalized city, an integrated city, a harmonious city, a diversified city and a humane city.

According to the Report, the cities with higher sustainable competitiveness over the past ten years have been selected based on the criteria for sustainable competitiveness and case studies. They are Hong Kong - "the city of the world with vitality", Taipei – “Asia-Pacific hub, knowledge-based economy”, Guangzhou – “business capital, cultural city”, Qingdao – “blue creation, green development”, Changsha – “manufacturing capital, creative city", Dalian – “garden city, software capital”, Suzhou – “open city, innovation capital”, Chengdu – “integrated urban and rural, steady development”, Hefei – “eco-leading, innovation-driven”, and Nantong – “ city of nature and capital of harmony”.

The Report suggests that Chinese cities should take the path of new-type urbanization to build the ideal city with sustainable competitiveness. That is to build people-oriented livable cities, vigorous cities with developed industries, diverse and inclusive harmonious cities, environmental-friendly ecological cities, garden cities of urban-rural integration, free and open international cities, cultural cities mixed with ancient and modern styles, and information cities with convenient communication.

This Blue Book published by Social Sciences Academic Press is the tenth annual report written by the China Urban Competitiveness Research Group. This Report is forward looking in theme, objective in commentary, rich in content, full and accurate in data. This report has great significance on decision-making and studies for municipal government departments, domestic and foreign enterprises, relevant research institutions and the social public.