Which Chinese mainland city is most attractive for foreigners?

By Zhang Hui

China launched the 2019 campaign of most attractive Chinese cities for foreigners On February 20 which foreign experts Living in China including Nobel Prize winners will assess major Chinese cities based on factors including expat-friendly policies, governmental administrative capacity and working and living environments.

The campaign, focusing on city’s opening up and talents introduction, aims at guiding cities to attract more highlevel overseas talents to come to China for innovation and entrepreneurship.

The annual campaign, titled “Amazing China: the Most Attractive Chinese Cities for Foreigners,” was organized by Foreign Talent Research Center, Ministry of Science and Technology in 2010.

It is the only ranking for Chinese mainland cities voted completely by foreign expert, and the ranking has become an important window for foreigners to understand Chinese cities.

In 2018, Shanghai and Beijing topping the list of the 10 Chinese cities most attractive to foreigners, and other cities on the list included Hefei, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Qingdao, Tianjin, Xi’an, and Wuhan.

The 2018 rankings received 239 votes from foreign experts including Nobel Prize winners and Turing Award winners, 2,815 votes from other foreign professionals, and 94,849 online votes from foreign Internet users.

The results of the 2018 campaign showed that the implementation of the work permit mechanism for foreigners to come to China and the visa system for foreign talents have greatly boosted government policies, work and living environment of Chinese cities, enabling foreign talents to come and move easily and stay comfortably in China.

In 2018, China issued 336,000 work permits for foreigners and over 950,000 foreigners worked in the country.

Co-hosted by the Foreign Talent Research Center, Ministry of Science and Technology and Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Science and Technology, the Foreign Experts Symposium invited 7 foreign experts from the UK, Japan, Switzerland, Thailand, Australia and other countries to give advice and suggestions on Chengdu’s development （Photo: Xu Qingqun)