On September 2, 2020, State Information Center released the ‘Research on the Business Environment of Central Cities in City Clusters 2019’. High-quality development has become a basic feature of national economic development in this era. Optimizing the business environment is an inevitable choice for the economy to shift from high-speed growth to high-quality development. The business environment is the productivity and soft power of a city, but also the creativity and driving force. The pros and cons of the business environment directly affect the quality and benefits of urban economic development, and good business environment of the central city will further enhance its economic radiation effect in the city clusters, thereby driving the economic and social development of the entire cluster.

Starting from the significance of improving the business environment in the central cities of city clusters, it is the first time of this report combineing expert opinions on the evaluation methods and indicator systems of the business environment in the central cities of city clusters, and apply them to empirical research. Among which, we can not only see the efforts made by the local government in promoting the business environment, but also the dazzling performance brought about by the benign interactive relationship between the government and the market. It can also be seen that Chinas economy and society are presenting a vigorous situation of multi-center and multi-level development.  

(1) Combining innovation with "three types of dimensions"  

Combining the two levels of cities and city clusters, the report pays attention to the interaction between cities and city clusters. The report breaks through the existing evaluation ideas and models, and no longer regards the citys business environment evaluation as an isolated indicator system for a single city. It is a comprehensive assessment of the central citys drive to the entire city cluster, and the supporting role of the city cluster in improving the business environment of the central city.

Combining both traditional and new perspectives, for the first time new infrastructure construction was included in the business environment assessment. Based on its own research foundation and data advantages, combined with recent research results of new infrastructure construction, it fits the development frontier of the 5G era, and fully considers the important role of new infrastructure in improving the urban business environment.

Combining classic statistics and big data technologies, this report introduces big data and related analysis. With professional support provided by Beijing Yidianying Technology Co., Ltd. and Renmin University of China, this assessment is not limited to a certain technical method. The report comprehensively uses big data technology and classic statistical technology to fully explore the advantages of big data in the Internet era and the value of traditional statistical data.

(2) Create a characteristic evaluation plan

This report takes the 19 city clusters proposed in the national "13th Five-Year Plan" as the scope, combined with the urban positioning and urban economic and social development level in the development strategy of each urban agglomeration, and selects a total of 38 central cities for business environment evaluation(See Table 1).

Table 1 Scope of evaluation objects

The report established five primary indicators including the government environment, infrastructure, element supply, market vitality, and the driving role of central cities, and selected 18 secondary indicators and 45 tertiary indicators to construct a business environment network indicator system. Among them, the index data comes from 11 index items of enterprise big data, 23 index items from the statistical yearbook, government work report, and statistical bulletin of each city, and 3 index items collected through the Internet. There are 4 index items from the municipal portal websites, 2 index items for data collection announced by the National Bureau of Statistics, and 2 index items from researchers collecting data independently.

This study uses the "Distance To Frontier Index Calculation Method" ("DTF" for short) as the calculation method to evaluate the business environment of city clusters.

(3) The law of comprehensive evaluation

The results of the study show that the leading cities in the overall ranking are: Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Chongqing. Generally speaking, the business environment of the central cities of my countrys city clusters is still at a level that needs continuous improvement. The average score of 38 sample cities is 39 points; among them, Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen score above 60 points. In addition, the leading cities have also shown a relatively balanced development trend, and have performed well in the five dimensions of the business environment-policy environment, infrastructure, factor supply, market vitality and leading role.

According to the weighted average score of each sub-item of the 19 city clusters, there is a big difference between city clusters. The Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city clusters are far ahead in the overall performance of the business environment. The city clusters in the eastern region are relatively advanced, while the city clusters in the northwest are in a backward position.

Through the evaluation, we can also see the basic rules of business environment optimization. On the whole, cities with higher levels of economic development also performed better. The leading role of the central city has a very high correlation with other indicators such as factor supply, market vitality, and infrastructure (see Figure 1), indicating that the stronger the centrality of a city, the greater the effect on other factors affecting the business environment. At the same time, according to the cluster analysis of the sample cities, it is seen that among the five indicators of the four types of gradient cities, the indicators most affected are the leading role of the central city and the level of factor supply. It shows that cities have the most obvious differences in these two aspects, and their development is uneven. The smallest differences in government affairs, supervision, and legal environment indicate that the willingness and intensity of local governments to improve the business environment are very satisfied. Basically, local governments have formulated and implemented effective business environment optimization policies and measures in terms of administrative mechanisms. The small gap in market vitality also shows that Chinas economy presents a patter of multi-centers.

Figure 1 Correlation analysis between the central citys leading role index and the other four indicators