Beijing named Chinese mainland's 'most global city'

A smoggy backwater in northern China has been named the country's "most global city" by a major management consulting firm. 

Beijing placed eighth in the AT Kearney Global Cities Index, the highest of any city in Chinese mainland Hong Kong placed fourth worldwide, behind only Paris, London and New York. Shanghai and Guangzhou placed 18th and 66th respectively. 

Beijing scored an overall 3.5 in five categories, including business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience and political engagement. It stood out from other Chinese cities in terms of the number of Fortune 500 companies, international schools, broadband subscribers and museums.

"The increasing global importance of Chinese companies has helped catapult Beijing to fourth place on the business activity dimension. This, together with some improvement in scores for human capital and cultural exchange, has been more than enough to offset declining relative performance in information exchange and international political engagement," AT Kearney experts said.

While both Beijing and Shanghai have become more global, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chongqing all fell in the rankings. Guangzhou suffered due to a "significant decrease in political engagement" according to the report, while Shenzhen's human capital score dropped significantly, affecting the city's final position. 

[Image via Flickr]