Shenzhen along with Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, is ranked among the top four cities in China, according to a report jointly published by accounting firm PwC and China Development Research Foundation.

The report, titled Chinese Cities of Opportunity 2020, was released at the 2020 China International Fair for Trade in Services on Sunday.

The report covers 42 Chinese cities. In total, 10 dimensions were used to evaluate cities in terms of economic development, social livelihood, infrastructure and other aspects.

This year, the report has also paid special attention to measuring the resilience of cities from the perspectives of health care, safety work, natural disasters and public safety.

The study results show that Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen rank as the top four among the 42 cities.

Jin Jun, a management consulting partner based in PwC’s Beijing office, said that Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are veritable “super first-tier cities” in China in terms of size, population and development quality.

The four cities, each enjoying its own influence in the world, are comparable to world-class cities, and are also typical of the urban agglomeration effect, said Jin.

The emerging “new first-tier cities” including Chengdu, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Zhengzhou also enter the top 10 Chinese cities rankings, according to the report.

Fang Jin, secretary general of China Development Research Foundation, said that good infrastructure in big cities, widespread application of information technology, strict and efficient community management, extensive participation of social organizations and strong civic awareness have played a key role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nevertheless, all these factors have demonstrated the strong resilience of Chinese cities, especially big cities and city clusters, during the crisis, according to Fang.