Developing at a fast pace, Shanghai has become Asia’s ‘New York’ with the potential to soon take over as the top global financial capital,
Currently, Shanghai retained the No.5 position but saw its score move closer to those of global hubs including New York and London, according to the 25th edition of the Global Financial Centres Index compiled by the China Development Institute, South China's Guangdong Province and London-based Z/Yen Partners.
The GFCI 25 provides evaluations of future competitiveness and rankings for more than 110 major financial centers has received considerable attention from the global financial community.
China announced an action plan in January to transform Shanghai into an international financial center by 2020, with a focus on yuan-denominated products and strong financial resource allocation capability.
New York remains in first place in the index with 794 points, followed by London, Hong Kong and Singapore. Shanghai was just ahead of Tokyo with a score of 770 points. In the previous survey in September 2018, Shanghai's ranking was also fifth with a score of 766 points.
Officials here said Shanghai will likely surpass Singapore as the world's fourth-largest financial hub within three years.
The achievement is expected on the metrics of a recent ranking of global financial centers that put the city in fifth position. At this pace, the officials said, Shanghai could become the global leader sooner than later.
Xi Junyang, a professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said looking at the metrics used in the ranking, Shanghai could replace Singapore within three years.
"This ranking focuses on volume. Singapore is relatively developed but Shanghai has much growth potential. The city has the vast Chinese domestic market as its source for growth," he said.
Shanghai made great progress in 2018 in terms of the volume of deals and the growth in types of financial products, Xi said. Its level of openness also greatly improved.
In 2018, Shanghai had financial market turnover of $245.15 trillion, up 15.2 percent year-on-year.
Indication of greater openness in recent years in Shanghai included the internationalization of the Shanghai Gold Exchange and the creation of a crude futures exchange.
A bond connect plan is also in the works to integrate bond investors with the global market, and the daily quota on the Hong Kong-Shanghai stock link program has been expanded.
"Improved rankings of Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong reflect the advance of China's financial industry and its trend of greater openness. Their influence is also rising as global economic activity shifts toward Asia," Zhao Xijun, deputy director of the Finance and Securities Research Institute at the Renmin University of China, said.
When the index was first published in 2007, Shanghai only ranked in 24th position with a score of 576 points. Its gap with the No.1 global hub narrowed by 165 points over the years.
On the industrial level, the global pharmaceutical manufacturing industry is shifting towards China, and the Chinese pharmaceutical industry is in the golden period of development.
More and more enterprises, in order to better occupy the market and harvest more benefits, choose to innovate technology, increase investment in R&D innovation and R&D teams, and maintain high-price and high-level competition through the first mover advantages of new products.
Furthermore, to guarantee the continuous enrichment of product lines and deal with the increasingly high environmental protection pressure, it has become a common need of pharmaceutical enterprises to achieve flexible production as per demand changes by optimizing process and equipment performance, so as to flexibly match the diversity of production needs.
As a grand international event for the exchange, cooperation and common development of the pharmaceutical field, will take place in Shanghai New International Expo Centre from June 18-20, 2019, bringing highly flexible and multifunctional pharmaceutical machinery and packaging equipment to people engaging in pharmaceutical production and procurement from all over the world. It will also help pharmaceutical enterprises achieve the matching of manufacturing cycles and speed of putting pharmaceutical product.
Meanwhile, recent developments indicate that the government of Yangpu – a district in the major Chinese city of Shanghai, has initiated an agreement with the MXC Foundation to drive the creation of an IoT-based Smart City.
A Smart City is an ideological term that refers to the development of cities that have all functions facilitated by advanced digital technologies. This includes the likes of blockchain and IoT, as well as artificial intelligence and robotic process.
The overarching aim of a Smart City is to improve sustainability, increase efficiency levels, accelerate economic development and ultimately, create a better quality of life for those based in the city.
The Shanghai Smart City program will be fully supported by Berlin-based blockchain startup, MXC Foundation.
MXC utilizes a highly innovative technology called ‘Low Power, Wide Area Network’, or simply ‘LPWAN’. The technology allows radio-based equipment to communicate with 5g protocols.
However, the key standout with LPWAN is that it is ultra-efficient.
Ma Qing, Vice Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Committee of Yangpu District said: “Our agreement with the MXC Foundation will accelerate industrial innovation, provide technical support for the development of smart cities in Shanghai Yangpu District, and provide comprehensive, high-quality social organizations, enterprises and residential areas in the district, thanks to the increased efficiency of the city’s IoT (internet of things) network,”
Ma Qing added the Yangpu District Government has “opened this avenue to attract and support additional blockchain companies in the city.”
To illustrate the need for efficient Smart Cities that utilize the benefits of IoT for the purposes of improved efficiency and sustainability levels, one only needs to look at growing population levels. In 1950, just two megacities (population of 10 million or more) existed in the form of Tokyo and New York.
By the year 2030, it is believed that this figure will surpass 40 megacities mark. However, even more alarming, it is believed that the greater Shanghai area will have more than 170 million residents, subsequently creating a ‘gigacity’.
As such, and due to the involvement of government officials, should the Shanghai-MXC pilot result in success this could potentially be a game-changer for blockchain usage in the real-world setting.