The COVID-19 epidemic is having a major impact on the global economy, and it may also catalyze changes in the domestic urban competition pattern. The city’s GDP rankings that have been maintained for nearly a decade may undergo major changes this year, and a new round of urban competition is also accelerating.
Top 10 list may change this year
Recently, cities have successively released the 2019 Statistical Bulletin on Economic and Social Development, and the city’s GDP rankings have also been released. The top ten cities in terms of GDP in 2019 are Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Suzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan, Hangzhou and Tianjin.
These ten cities have been “occupied” on the list for nearly 10 years. Although the rankings of individual cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen, Chongqing and Tianjin have changed, the overall pattern of the top ten has not changed. However, in 2020, this pattern may be broken.
The first break may be Tianjin’s slide. In 2019, Tianjin’s GDP was 1,410.028 billion yuan, an increase of 4.8% over the previous year, and the ranking fell from sixth in 2018 to tenth. And the eleventh place followed by Nanjing, GDP in 2019 was 1403.015 billion yuan, an increase of 7.8% over the previous year. The total difference between the two is only 7.4 billion yuan.
Tianjin used to be the leader of Chinese cities. From 2010 to 2013, Tianjin’s GDP growth rate ranked first in the country at 17.4%, 16.4%, 13.8%, and 12.5% respectively, and began to compete with cities such as Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Guangzhou. However, as economic development entered a new normal, Tianjin’s momentum gradually diminished.
In 2017, Tianjin’s economic growth rate dropped to its lowest point in many years. GDP grew only 3.6% in that year, and in 2018, it only increased by 3.6%. According to the results of the fourth national economic census, the GDP of Tianjin in 2018 was revised to 1,336.292 billion yuan, a reduction of 544.672 billion yuan. On this basis, in 2019, Tianjin grew by only 4.8%.
At the same time, the COVID-19 epidemic broke out in Wuhan, which is gaining momentum, adding another complex situation to this changing situation. According to the 2019 data, the GDP gap between Wuhan, Tianjin and Nanjing is about 210 billion yuan.
In the first quarter of 2019, Wuhan’s GDP was 335.748 billion yuan. According to data released by the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Statistics, from January to February, the added value of its industrial enterprises above designated size fell by 32.6%, fixed investment fell by 72.9%, imports and exports fell by 12.8%, and total social retail products fell by 32.1%. In 2020, Wuhan will “lost the first quarter” and will be affected by the epidemic in the future. Therefore, Wuhan may fall into the top ten “card battle” with Tianjin and Nanjing this year.
However, Dai Bin, director of the Regional Economic and Urban Management Research Center of Southwest Jiaotong University, told the First Financial Reporter that the impact of the epidemic on Wuhan is more obvious in a short period of 1 to 2 years, but the epidemic is not like an earthquake and has not damaged Wuhan’s infrastructure The material conditions are mainly the impact on confidence, talents, etc. In the later period, if the central government increases support, it may achieve greater development.
The impact of Wuhan has given competitors Changsha and Zhengzhou the opportunity to close the gap. In 2019, Changsha’s GDP was 1,157.422 billion yuan, an increase of 8.1% over the previous year; Zhengzhou’s GDP was 1,158.97 billion yuan, an increase of 6.5% over the previous year. The same is the capital city of the central provinces, with a relatively large population and first place in the city. It can be expected that the future competition will be more intense.
Reproduce the trade-offs between east and west?
The current list of the top ten cities in GDP was formed around 2011. Chengdu and Wuhan squeezed into the list in 2011 and 2012 respectively, breaking the original pattern and squeezing coastal cities such as Hangzhou, Wuxi, Qingdao and Foshan. Prior to this, only Chongqing among the top ten cities in terms of GDP had come from the Midwest.
This change in pattern is also the result of the impact of the international financial crisis. At that time, the eastern coastal cities were weak due to weak external demand, and the growth was weak. With the large-scale industrial transfer and its own basic conditions, the energy levels of Midwest cities represented by Chongqing, Chengdu, and Wuhan increased rapidly.
In 2010, Wuhan and Chengdu ranked twelfth and thirteenth, respectively, with the four municipalities directly under the central government, four sub-provincial cities Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Qingdao, as well as Suzhou, Wuxi, and Foshan. In 2011, Chengdu and Wuhan ranked tenth and eleventh; in 2012, they ranked eighth and ninth. Qingdao and Wuxi withdrew from the top ten, and Hangzhou dropped to tenth.
Not only Chongqing, Chengdu and Wuhan, in the past ten years, with the acceleration of industrialization brought about by industrial transfer and the acceleration of urbanization, the economies of mid-western cities such as Changsha, Zhengzhou, Xi’an, Nanchang, and Hefei have achieved rapid growth. The ranking continued to advance, pulling down the coastal cities that had previously entered.
In fact, the pattern of the top ten cities before 2010 was also profoundly affected by international factors. In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization, and the foreign trade-oriented coastal cities developed rapidly. In 2001, Wuxi squeezed into the tenth place, surpassing Chengdu the ninth in the following year; in 2005, Qingdao squeezed into the tenth, followed by Ningbo and Foshan, and Chengdu retired to the 14th place.
It can be said that the international market environment has profoundly affected the competitive landscape of China’s domestic cities. Therefore, the current outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic overseas has a huge impact on the global economy, and will also have a major impact on coastal cities that are dominated by demand outside of China. Will this bring a new round of urban pattern adjustment?
To sort out the foreign trade dependence of some domestic cities, in 2019, Shenzhen’s total import and export volume was 29.7386 trillion yuan, 2019 GDP was 269.2709 billion yuan, and foreign trade dependence was 110.57%; Suzhou’s total import and export volume was 219.874 billion yuan and GDP was 19235.80 100 million yuan, the dependence of foreign trade is 114.3%.
Judging from the current situation, the COVID-19 epidemic is likely to have an impact similar to or even exceeding the external demand of the international financial crisis. Therefore, there may be a situation of weak growth in the eastern cities and relatively fast growth in the central and western cities, thus making the urban pattern Changes occur in this trade.
Dai Bin said that some coastal cities mainly focus on external markets and participate deeply in globalization; while external demand is affected, the advantages of inland cities dominated by domestic demand are more obvious. In addition, the epidemic situation will also trigger the country and enterprises to think about the industrial layout and supply chain, which is more beneficial to inland cities.
Not only that, the major coastal cities have entered the middle and late stages of urbanization, and the peak of infrastructure construction has passed. In response to the expansion of effective investment measures after the epidemic, the central and western cities will likely benefit because it is still in a large construction cycle. There is a relatively large construction space, which is conducive to maintaining stable growth.