Annual Report on China’s Urban Competitiveness No.3 released

Press Conference of 2005 Blue Book of Urban Competitiveness & Seminar on China’s Urban Competitiveness to Hold in Beijing

Updated: 2008-08-29 23:43:21

The Blue Book of Urban Competitiveness ---- Annual Report on China’s Urban Competitiveness No.3: Cluster: the Dragon Vein of China’s Economy, edited by Dr. Ni Pengfei of Institute of Finance and Trade Economics of CASS, was officially published by Social Sciences Academic Press. The press conference of 2005 Blue Book of Urban Competitiveness and the seminar on China’s urban competitiveness were held on March 17 in Beijing. The conference released the comprehensive urban competitiveness ranking and all single-competiveness rankings of 200 cities of China in 2004, and made discussions on China’s city development issues.

Over 50 honorable guests attending the conference include Chen Jiagui, vice president of CASS, Xie Shouguang, president of Social Sciences Academic Press, Pei Changhong, director of Institute of Finance and Trade Economics of CASS, Li Yang, director of Institute of Finance of CASS, Chen Yongchuan, vice president of Nankai University and director of Combinatorial Mathematics Research Center, Huang Langhui, director of Survey Office of the National Bureau of Statistics, Wang Yanzhong, deputy director of Bureau of Scientific Research Management of CASS, Niu Fengrui, director of Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies of CASS, Wang Zhenzhong, deputy director of Institute of Economics of CASS, He Dexu, deputy director of Institute of Finance and Trade Economics of CASS, and other experts and scholars, research group members of Annual Report on China’s Urban Competitiveness, and 20 news media friends from CCTV, Xinhua News Agency, China News Agency, People’s Daily, China Youth News, Beijing News, Beijing Evening News, Beijing Times, Southern Weekend, 21st Century Business Herald, Economic Observer, Sanlian Lifeweek, New Weekly, News Week, South Reviews, Urban Studies, and City Economy. www.china.com.cn made an online live show of this conference.

Chen Jiagui, vice president of CASS attended this conference and made an important speech. Vice President Chen said, China is undergoing the largest industrialization and urbanization in human history, and urban development has great influence on China’s economic and social development, but during the urbanization development, there are many controversial issues. For example, some local governments only go after GDP growth, but care less on environmental pollution which is quite severe; some cities made a lot of “image projects” and “vanity projects” regardless of their actual financial resources, so the healthy development of cities is negatively affected. Therefore, it’s very important to enhance theoretical and countermeasure studies on urbanization so as to lead to scientific and healthy city development.

Vice President Chen believed that positive and safe policies, aggressive attitude and safe measures should be taken to solve problems during the urbanization and to promote healthy urbanization development.

Chen Jiagui said that 2003 Annual Report on China’s Urban Competitiveness had received wide attention since it’s published and had very positive effects on China’s city development. Urban competitiveness is expressed in many aspects; it’s very complicated to assess the urban competitiveness, so a scientific assessment system is needed to make sure assessment authoritative. Different assessment measures or systems will have different assessment results. If the assessment system is scientific, the assessment result should be right and acceptable. In addition, assessment may be comprehensive or mono-directional, just for one important issue. This Annual Report on China’s Urban Competitiveness focuses on industrial cluster, except for comprehensive assessment. The industrial cluster plays a very important role in improving urban competitiveness, promoting fast and healthy development of urban and regional economy, increasing resident income, providing employment opportunities on a large scale, and boosting new industrialization path. However, the society has less studies or attaches less importance to the industrial cluster; industrial cluster study is supposed to attract wide attention. As for a region or a city, investment promotion projects and large enterprises are very important, but creating favorable conditions to form and develop industrial cluster is more important.

At last Vice President Chen expected today’s seminar and everyone’s efforts would help the research achievements on urban competitiveness and industrial cluster in this report be more useful, help the industrial cluster attract wide attention of the whole society, and help the industrial cluster policy upgrade into a regional or even a state important policy for regional economic or industrial development.

(Photographed by Kong Fanlai from Institute of Finance and Trade Economics of CASS)