Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang province was ranked 10th in China in terms of growth potential in the next five years, according to the 2021 China's emerging city rankings recently released by The Economist Intelligence Unit.

The rankings were made by The EIU by evaluating nearly 300 cities from the Chinese mainland through more than 60 factors including GDP, population, foreign direct investment, urban space, consumer market, logistics, communications, medical care, and education.

Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou took the top three slots, followed by Shanghai, Zhuhai, Beijing, Suzhou, Hefei, Nanjing, as well as Ningbo.

Ningbo was ranked ninth in China in terms of attractiveness to talents in 2020, 13 spots higher than the previous year, according to a report recently published by Ren Zeping, chief economist of Soochow Securities, and Zhilian Recruitment, a major Chinese recruitment website. 

Last year, a total of 209,500 new jobs were created in the city, up 9.87 percent year-on-year.    

The city's innovation capability has also grown significantly during the past five years. It jumped to 15th in China in the latest ranking for national innovation-oriented cities.

As of the end of 2020, Ningbo was home to 3,102 high-tech enterprises, doubling that in the previous year and ranking 18th in the nation.

The local government has set the goal of increasing the total number of high-tech enterprises in the city to 8,000 by 2025, according to a guideline it recently unveiled in July to bolster scientific and technological innovation during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period.

The ratio of fixed assets investment to GDP in Ningbo is less than 60 percent, which means that the city has gotten past investment dependence and has embarked on the road of high-quality development driven by scientific and technological innovation.