Xi'an rises in global cities index

The city of Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, ranked 96th on the Global Cities Index, up four places, according to a report recently released by Kearney, a US-based management consulting firm.

Comprised of the Global Cities Index and the Global Cities Outlook, the report offered key insights into how COVID-19 and the resulting pandemic containment measures have impacted the level of global engagement of 156 cities around the world.

Among the 31 Chinese cities included this year, Beijing ranked sixth and Shanghai rose two places to break the top 10 for the first time. The southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen ranked 61 and 72, rising two and three spots, respectively.

As an important city in Northwest China, Xi'an has seen a remarkable transformation in its urban economy, people's livelihoods and the introduction of talent.

In the first half of this year, the city's gross domestic product reached 509.96 billion yuan ($79.68 billion), a year-on-year increase of 7.8 percent, and it saw an optimized economic structure and an increase in the total output of industries above designated size.

Living standards in Xi'an have improved along with economic development. In the first half, 12.42 million square meters of urban green space was added, and the 205-kilometer greenway of the Bahe, Fenghe and Weihe rivers and Qinling Mountain has opened to the public with a 74-km core area accessible to disabled people.

In recent years, Xi'an has taken scientific and technological innovation and talent team building as one of its ten key tasks.

With one of the highest rates of higher education in the country, Xi'an has 4.02 million residents with a college degree or above, and the urbanization rate of permanent residents is 75.1 percent.