Beijing Ranked Eighth In Global City Influence Index

Yesterday, the 2014 A.T. Kearney Global Cities Index (GCI), a measurement used to evaluate a city’s global influence, ranked Beijing eighth – the first time it has appeared in the top 10.

According to China Daily, the GCI has been measured every two years since 2008 and ranks countries based on their global engagement in business, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience and political engagement.

The rise has been attributed to growth within Beijing’s Fortune 500 companies, employees at international schools, broadband subscribers, and cultural exchanges between museums. Companies are able to utilize this information to predict a city’s ability to attract and hold onto talent as well as to prioritize development proposals.

These findings are in part contradictory to our coverage of the 2014 Business Climate Survey that indicated that Beijing’s poor air was significantly impeding the capital’s ability to retain local and foreign staff but which inversely found that Beijing provided an increasingly stable investment environment, with 75 percent of those surveyed remaining optimistic about China’s future business prospects.

Shanghai is placed 14 on the list, whereas the top three remain New York, London and Paris.

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Photo: China Daily