Seoul among world’s 10 most competitive cities

By Kim Young-jin

Staff reporter

A top Chinese think tank has named Seoul as one of the 10 most competitive cities in the world, Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

The capital city ranked ninth on the list of global urban competitiveness compiled by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, jumping three spots from its 2008 listing.

New York and London topped the list, which assessed 500 cities using such indices as gross domestic product (GDP) per square kilometer, the number of international patents and the multinational corporation index.

Among Seoul's Asian peers, Tokyo ranked second and Singapore came in at eighth. Hong Kong, which climbed one spot from its previous 11th, was the only Chinese city to make the top 10.

But the study also found that nine of the top 10 fastest growing cities, including Erdos, Bautou, and Yantai, are in China.

Seoul's rise as a competitive city is in line with Mayor Oh Se-hoon's goal for the capital to become one of the world's top five cities. It came in 27th in the 2006 rankings.

Meanwhile, U.S. cities continued to make a strong stand on the list, despite the economic crisis. Twenty cities made the top 50, including Chicago (5), San Francisco (6) and Los Angeles (9).