On September 19, the British think tank Z / yen group released the 26th issue of "global financial center index (GFCI 26)". In the current ranking, although it ranked fifth for the third time in a row, the gap between Shanghai and the top four financial centers is further narrowing.
According to the official website, the GFCI index is jointly prepared by the British think tank Z / yen group and China (Shenzhen) Institute of comprehensive development. It is updated and released in March and September every year. It mainly evaluates and ranks the world's major financial centers in terms of business environment, human resources, infrastructure, development level and international reputation. A total of 104 financial centers entered the list in the current global financial center index. The top ten financial centers in the world are New York, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo, Beijing, Dubai, Shenzhen and Sydney.
Compared with the ranking in the previous period, the order of the top five did not change, but the scores decreased to varying degrees compared with the previous period. Among them, the scores in London and Hong Kong decreased by 14 points and 12 points respectively, widening the gap with New York, which ranked first.
It is worth noting that the score gap between Shanghai and Singapore has narrowed from 2 points in the previous period to 1 point in the current period. From the historical ranking, the gap between Shanghai and the first place was 193 points, but now the difference is only 29 points.
It is understood that Shanghai has been ranked fifth for three consecutive times, and the gap with the fourth city has been narrowing. On the one hand, thanks to the improvement of the degree of national financial opening to the outside world, especially since last year, the national financial opening-up policy has been continuously accelerated. Shanghai has taken advantage of the trend to promote a new round of higher-level financial opening-up; On the other hand, it also benefits from the continuous optimization of Shanghai's business environment. In this index, Shanghai ranks seventh in the world in terms of business environment.
At the same time, Shanghai's financial opening up is still advancing in depth and has made frequent moves in attracting foreign investment.
In August this year, Shanghai launched several opinions on promoting the development of regional headquarters of multinational corporations, deployed from six aspects, accelerated the gathering of functional institutions such as headquarters of multinational corporations in Shanghai, expanded functions and improved energy levels, and actively participated in the construction of "five centers" in Shanghai.
On September 16, the Shanghai municipal government held a centralized signing ceremony for foreign-funded projects. 42 projects were signed, with a total investment of about US $7.7 billion. Among them, there are 15 large projects with more than US $100 million, involving intelligent manufacturing, biomedicine, chemical industry, integrated circuit, commerce, finance and other fields.
On September 18, several opinions on further promoting foreign investment in this municipality were issued, and 26 measures were put forward in three aspects: further opening to the outside world, further attracting foreign investment and further protecting the legitimate rights and interests of foreign investors.
The data show that from January to August 2019, 4661 new foreign-funded projects were established in Shanghai, with a year-on-year increase of 47.8%, the contracted foreign capital was US $32.46 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 9.6%, and the actual foreign capital was US $13.108 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 13.4%. At present, the number of regional headquarters of multinational corporations in Shanghai has exceeded 700, which is the city that attracts the most regional headquarters and foreign R & D centers in China.
In this ranking, in addition to Shanghai, six cities in mainland China, including Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Qingdao and Chengdu, have entered the top 100.