Changsha city moved up 11 spots to ninth nationwide on a business environment evaluation report on Chinese cities released by the Academy of Greater Bay Area Studies.

The second edition of the report, which was released last December, surveyed and ranked 35 large and medium-sized Chinese cities based on six attributes: software environment, infrastructure, natural environment, social services, market environment, and business costs. The six separate index numbers are based on official statistics from authorities such as the State Statistics Bureau, and are combined to determine the city's final business climate score.

The central Chinese city of Changsha, Hunan province ranked second in software environment, moving up 29 places from last time. The top city on this list was Shenzhen.

Changsha's high rankings are partly a result of the soaring number of registered companies in the city, the rapid growth of investment, and healthy population growth, according to Geng Yanbing, executive president of the Academy of Greater Bay Area Studies and head of the research team.

Pleasant scenery in Changsha. [Photo/icswb.com]

The report shows that the population of Changsha increased by 227,900 in 2017, a growth rate second only to Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hangzhou among the cities that were surveyed.

Changsha also ranked highly in terms of investment growth rate, growing 13.1 percent. Its regional GDP exceeded 1 trillion yuan ($146 billion) for the first time in 2017, reaching 1.05 trillion yuan.

Geng suggested that in the future, Changsha should speed up infrastructure construction, develop transportation logistics channels, improve trade facilitation, expand international freight routes, and make innovations in cross-border e-commerce logistics, warehousing, consumer experience and tourism.