大疆科技DJI汪韬

5/17/2015 @ 11:54上午 16,776 views

Move Over, Hong Kong, Shenzhen Now China's Best City ForBusiness

Shenzhen passed Hong Kong to in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 2014 rankings. Hong Kong had held the top spot ever since its first inclusion in the survey a decade ago. Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, switched places, rising from No. 2 last year.

The survey of 294 cities, contained in CASS’s Blue Book on Urban Competitiveness, was released Thursday in Beijing.

The Shenzhen skyline (Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

The Pearl River Delta dominated the rankings with, in addition to Shenzhen and Hong Kong, Guangzhou at No. 5 and Macau at No. 9.

Shanghai remained third from the 2013 survey. Beijing fell two notches, landing in eighth place.

Hong Kong lost its leader-of-the-pack position largely because it did not support innovation. Its Census and Statistics Department reported that in 2013, the last year for which figures are available, the city’s public and private sectors and its educational institutions spent an amount equal to % of its gross domestic product on research and development for innovation and technology. Shenzhen, on the other hand, devoted % of its GDP last year to such areas.

Why the heavy emphasis on innovation Perhaps because Chinese Premier , with his much-publicized unveiled in early March, has placed his hopes on new businesses to revive the country’s economy. His concept is that Beijing can invest in innovation, and CASS has evidently adopted the theme.

Hong Kong, on the other hand, has its noninterventionist philosophy and refrained, for the most part, from picking winners and losers. In any survey conducted by a Beijing-based organization, Hong Kong is bound to lose out to cities implementing activist policies favored by the country’s leaders.

For decades, Hong Kong has worried about losing out to Singapore, run by world-class interventionists. Now, its concern focuses on next-door Shenzhen. After all, Hong Kong could have been the home of DJI Technology.

DJI—the initials stand for —was founded by mainland-born , who graduated from Hong Kong’s University of Science and Technology in 2006. He had afte r not getting support. That year he founded DJI, which now has 70% of the global market for civilian drones.

Frank Wang is the world’s first drone billionaire. (Photo: David Hartung for Forbes)

Fast Company magazine DJI 22nd on its 2015 list of the world’s most innovative companies. Frank Wang’s business is estimated to be worth about $8 billion, and many see it going to $10 billion after further rounds of funding.