Beijing beats Shanghai as the top global city in the second publication of the Schroders Global Cities 30 index

Beijing beats Shanghai as the top global city in the second publication of the Schroders Global Cities 30 index

LONDON, 14-Dec-2016 — /EuropaWire/ — Beijing has been named as the top global city in the second publication of the Schroders Global Cities 30 index, putting it ahead of Shanghai which took the top spot in August.

China’s mega-cities dominated the latest index taking four of the top five places. China’s capital city Beijing jumped from fourth place to first, whilst Shanghai, China’s most populous city with 22 million residents, fell from first place to second. Shenzhen, which links Hong Kong to China’s mainland jumped from sixth place to third, whilst Tianjin, China’s third largest city fell from third to fourth place.

North America also featured heavily in the index taking 17 of the 30 places. New York, which was ranked second in August’s publication, took fifth place in the latest index just ahead of Los Angeles (6), Dallas (7), Houston (9), Chicago (10) and Washington (11).

The Schroders Global Cities 30 index assesses and ranks the growth and future prospects of 161 global cities and was first published in August 2016.

London was the top ranked European city climbing two places to 8 in the latest index, Paris (12) and Madrid (28) are the only two other European cities in the index.

The Schroders Global Cities 30 index is compiled on a range of factors, including the projected growth of the economy and disposable incomes over the next decade and the size of the working population.

The top ranked cities share common factors such as top universities, excellent infrastructure and pools of high-skilled workers. They also tend to be economically diverse and are highly attractive places to live due to diverse cultural and leisure activities.

The data informing the index constantly changes as it is updated with fresh information, new forecasts and new data sets.

Hugo Machin, co-Head of Global Real Estate Securities, said:

“Chinese cities continue to grow at a rapid rate as the country industrialises. GDP and retail sales are growing quickly. The only one of the five factors that holds these cities back is disposable income but the rate of growth there is strong even if the absolute number is below peers.  We expect these Chinese cities to become increasingly important and play a larger part in our investment universe in the coming years.

“New York saw a small fall from second place to fifth, this is not due to a downgrade of New York but more an upgrade in the growth of Chinese cities. Cities like Dallas continue to attract investment due to temperate climate, international airports, land to build and expand and tax incentives.

“London has seen a small increase in the index. It still remains one of our favourite cities due to its highly skilled workforce, large tourist demand and cultural appeal and we believe it will continue to thrive.”

Machin co-manages the Schroder Global Cities Real Estate fund with Tom Walker. Their aim is to invest in stocks that should benefit from strong demand for commercial property in the world’s most highly-ranked global cities. They seek to invest in cities with restrictions to sprawl, be it geographical limits or planning rules, such as London’s green-belt.

The global cities team has recently launched the Global Cities blog which acts as a resource on the longer term trends impacting global real estate. For further reading please visit the blog or follow us on Twitter: @GlobalCities

Top 30 Global Cities

Source: Schroders and Oxford Economics, as at November 2016

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Most of the real estate funds referred to are unauthorised collective investment schemes as defined in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Promotion of these funds is restricted and access to full information about these funds is only available to those exempt from the restriction.

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*Real Estate AUM includes holdings of Schroder Real Estate Capital Partners and Schroders Multi-asset Funds.

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