This aerial photo shows the central business district of Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong province, on March 19, 2019. (PHOTO / XINHUA)
Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen were the top three cities respectively in comprehensive financial competitiveness among the Chinese mainland’s 31 financial centers, with Shenzhen growing the fastest.
This finding was released in the new China Financial Center Index, published by Shenzhen-based think tank China Development Institute on Tuesday.
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Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, financial centers on the Chinese mainland have basically remained on an upward trajectory. Of the 31 ranked cities, 25 saw their scores increase compared with a year earlier.
Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, financial centers on the Chinese mainland have basically remained on an upward trajectory. Of the 31 ranked cities, 25 saw their scores increase compared with a year earlier
Growth of Shenzhen’s comprehensive competitiveness in finance outpaced its peers. The city topped the list in the development of local financial institutions and finance-related policy support.
Guangzhou grabbed fourth place in the overall ranking, followed by Hangzhou and Chengdu. Chongqing, Nanjing, Tianjin and Wuhan rounded out the list of top 10 cities.
The capacity of financial centers in aggregating resources is growing stronger, said Liu Guohong, assistant to the president of CDI. He said that total assets value of financial institutions in the 31 financial centers had amounted to over 75 percent of the country’s total as of the end of 2020.
Although the Chinese mainland’s financial centers have generally weathered the storm of the coronavirus pandemic, changing business and living environment, as well as international connections, could affect the industry’s long-term development and should be taken seriously, he said.
Accumulative value added of the 31 financial centers on the mainland amounted to 5.06 trillion yuan ($794.5 billion) last year, accounting for 60.2 percent of the country’s total.
According to the 2021 Shenzhen Listed Companies Development Report, another report published on the same day jointly by CDI and Guosen Securities, technology and finance have become two major growth drivers in the development of the city’s listed companies.
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Market capitalization of Shenzhen-based listed companies reached 16.33 trillion yuan, growing 33.74 percent year-on-year. Listed companies in information technology and finance took up the majority, taking up 68.04 percent of the total market capitalization, the report said.
In 2020, 50 Shenzhen-based companies went public on domestic and overseas stock exchanges last year, bringing the city’s total number to 468 as of the end of the year.
sally@chinadailyhk.com