Wuhan, capital city of Central China's Hubei province, has been ranked as a new first-tier city, according to the latest ranking of Chinese cities in terms of their commercial attraction, which was released by the Chinese financial media outlet Yicai on May 27.
The top four first-tier cities are Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.
The list also included 15 new first-tier cities, including Chengdu, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Xi’an, Suzhou and Wuhan.
Through the commercial shopping data of 170 mainstream consumer brands, user behavior data of 17 leading internet companies, and big data of city data agencies, the list measures the commercial attraction of 337 cities at prefecture level and above in China.
As the city hardest hit in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, Wuhan's commercial resource agglomeration was affected to a certain extent. Its core business district strength ranking dropped by seven places, and its daily average passenger flow ranking dropped by two places.
The lockdown of the city last year also caused it to drop six places on the traffic connection index.
Wuhan's rapid recovery in the second half of 2020, however, as well as the recovery of its urban residents' economic vitality, regained the recognition of venture capital.
In 2020, the total box office of Wuhan movies maintained fourth position among the new first-tier cities, and the city's financing scale has increased by 5.95 times.
In terms of development potential, Wuhan is up by two places in the rankings.
