China's capital was ranked fourth out of 200 Chinese cities by a latest report on competitiveness released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

According to the fourth edition of the annual report made by the academy on the competitiveness of Chinese cities, the top five cities were Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen.

Of the cities in the Chinese mainland, Beijing overtook Shenzhen and Guangzhou to rank second, next only to Shanghai.

Unlike the former three reports of city competitiveness, the latest report covered 200 Chinese cities, including nine from outside the Chinese mainland for the first time, said Dr. Ni Pengfei with the CASS, who was a major compiler of the report.

Ni noted that compilers of the report, numbering nearly 100, came from the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, and Taiwan.

The new report also made a comparison of competitiveness among 100 countries and regions in the world, employing self-developed framework and methods.

According to the report, the world's 10 most competitive nations and regions were the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Canada, Italy and Belgium. Hong Kong was ranked 11th and the Chinese mainland, 34th.

Ni said it is impossible for the mainland cities to catch up with Hong Kong in the short term, but their gap with Taipei was narrowing.

With real estate development as a major factor, the latest report said some cities fell behind because of inappropriately high housing prices. Those cities included Hangzhou and Xiamen. Though ranking among the top five, the housing prices of Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen remained an unreasonably high level, Ni said.

It was also the first time the report included an indicator based on scientific innovation.

(Xinhua News Agency March 23, 2006)