Top 10 cities for startups in China

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Beijing tops the most startup friendly city in China, according to latest ranking.

The capital city has more companies trading on the country's new over-the-counter market and national platforms for entrepreneurship and innovation than Shanghai, at second spot, and Shenzhen, ranked third, combined.

The list released by biaozhun007.com, a business analysis platform, and UrWork, a co-working office space company founded in 2015, is based on big data provided by Tencent Research Institute.

According to the study, three factors were used to measure entrepreneurship in each city, the number of enterprises or business projects, business environment, and talent support. Here are the 10 most startup friendly cities in the country:

No.10 Nanjing

Youngsters are live broadcasting over mobile phones in Nanjing. /VCG Photo

Lies on the south bank of the Yangtze River, Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, is famous for its human historical landscapes.

From the beginning of 2017, more than 3,000 entrepreneurs in the city were supported by local authorities and succeeded in their dreams of starting a business, according to Nanjing authorities.

No.9 Chengdu

Chengdu is also well-known for lovely giant pandas. /AFP Photo

Chengdu, the capital of southwestern China's Sichuan province, was ranked among the most popular choices for Chinese overseas returnee entrepreneurs according to a report jointly released by The Center for China & Globalization and the job-hunting website zhaopin.com recently.

No.8 Suzhou

Suzhou is famous for its beautiful landscaped gardens. /AFP Photo

Located in the center of the Yangtze Delta with Shanghai City to the east, Suzhou is known for its historical significance and beautiful landscape.

Besides the beautiful view and pleasant climate, supports from local government is also an important reason for entrepreneurs to choose the city.

“I’ve done the maths. I can save a third of human resources costs and half of office costs in Suzhou. I expect other perks, as other local governments in China decide to offer incentives to attract more businesses, such as tax cuts for start-ups,” said Gu Jun, a Beijing-based entrepreneur, who plans to move his business to Suzhou.

No.7 Tianjin

Chinese pancake, or Jianbing, is a popular street food in Tianjin, China. /VCG Photo

Tianjin, which takes only 40 minutes to Beijing by high-speed train, is benefiting by the rising bike-sharing industry.

The city is now home to 1,000 bike manufacturers and more than 700 spare parts manufacturers, according to a report by the Ministry of Commerce of China.

Sun Hao, CEO of a bike producer in Tianjin told Xinhua that cooperation with the bike-sharing business has almost doubled his company's production volume.

No.6 Wuhan

Shared bikes are parked on East Lake Greenway in Wuhan, Hubei province, on April 23, 2017. /VCG Photo

Wuhan, the capital of Central China’s Hubei province, is a commercial center divided by the Yangtze and Han rivers.

According to local policy, employees from public institutions can leave to start their own businesses without losing their employment relations with former employers for five years under certain criteria.

No.5 Hangzhou

Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of Alibaba /AFP Photo

As the organizer of the 2016 G20 Summit, Hangzhou is famous for its beautiful landscape and numerous online-shopping startups.

According to Yibada, about one-third of China’s shopping websites are based in Hangzhou. The city is headquarters of e-commerce giants such as Alibaba, and home to many rising startups like online shopping platform Mogujie.

Hangzhou is encouraging more startups to come by creating a full industry chain and ecosystem in a base called the Internet Dream Town in 2015, whose ambition is to create the next Alibaba. The “giant incubator” attracted more than 600 internet-based startups within a year, said CCTV.

Some of the top Venture Capitals also chose Hangzhou to open branches.

No.4 Guangzhou

The 121st China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, April 15, 2017 /VCG Photo

Hiring momentum in Guangzhou is now leading the nation amid the region’s entrepreneurial atmosphere with both big companies and technology start-ups more willing to take on new talents.

According to a recent quarterly employment outlook survey released by the global recruiting agency ManpowerGroup, 8% more employers in Guangzhou said they would be hiring people in the current quarter from July to September, which gives a lead to Guangzhou in China’s hiring market.

No.3 Shenzhen

A drone from DJI /AFP Photo

Shenzhen, praised as China's "Silicon Valley", is known for its strong industrial productive forces which makes the city the best place for hardware startups.

The world-class manufacturing ecosystem in the city can help entrepreneurs to convert their ideas into products quickly and efficiently.

Located in Guangdong Province, Shenzhen is only 35 kilometers from Hong Kong, which attracts capitals from both Hong Kong and Chinese mainland.

Shenzhen is home of many industry-leading tech companies such as Tencent, Huawei, and DJI.

No.2 Shanghai

Shanghai is also favored by foreign entrepreneurs for setting up their businesses in China. /AFP Photo

According to shcci.com's report this March, 12 out of 100 adults in Shanghai from age 16 to 64 are engaged in entrepreneurial activities. Meanwhile, Shanghai is continuing to perfect the ecosystem for startups.

The city currently has over 20,000 facilitating agencies for entrepreneurs and more than 500 entrepreneurial spaces such as incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces, said shcci.com.

Beside Chinese citizens, Shanghai is also favored by foreign entrepreneurs for setting up their businesses in the country.

Unfamiliar with local laws, Jordan Campbell from Scotland hired an agency when starting his business in Shanghai in 2012.

"We outsourced the legal set up of the company to an agency, so professionals from the agency did all the things for us," Campbell told The Global Times. "I felt that if I did all the things on the legal and procedure side, then I would lose focus and time on doing the most important thing, which was setting up ideas for the business."

No.1 Beijing

Beijing tops the most startup friendly city in China, according to latest ranking. /AFP Photo

According to Global Startup Ecosystem Report released by Startup Genome earlier this year, Beijing ranks fourth best entrepreneurial environment in the world after Silicon Valley, New York, and London.

"Here (in Beijing), entrepreneurs, engineering talent from the two top Chinese universities, Tsinghua and Peking, and VC (venture capital) money come together," said Cyriac Roeding, guest author of Recode and co-founder of Shopkick.

"Seeing the scale, speed, aspirations, money supply and talent here, I walked away thinking this will be the only true competitor to Silicon Valley in the next 10 years." he added.

Source(s): China Daily