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| Seoul has lost competitiveness as a global city, according to global reports, Wednesday. Korea Times file |
By Bahk Eun-ji
Seoul Metropolitan City has been losing competitiveness in terms of its business and residential environments, according to reports, Wednesday.
The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) analyzed the Global Cities Report issued by the U.S. consulting firm A.T. Kearney and the Global Power City Index (GPCI) by Japan's Institute for Urban Strategies at the Mori Memorial Foundation, and found that Seoul's urban competitiveness has been on a continuous decline since 2015.
A.T. Kearney said Seoul's ranking on its Global Cities Index (GCI), which shows urban competitiveness, sank from 11th in 2015 to 17th in 2020, among the 150 cities studied for its report. Compared to this, the rankings of San Francisco and Shanghai rose significantly from 22nd to 13th and from 21st to 12th, respectively.
In the ranking of the Global Urban Outlook (GCO), which assesses a city's growth potential with regards to its business-friendly environment, administrative capacity and private sector investment, Seoul fell from 12th in 2015 to 42nd in 2020.
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"The rankings of cultural interaction and environment categories jumped significantly, but the overall ranking fell due to the economic sector, where 13 indicators were evaluated such as GDP growth, wage levels, corporate tax rate and recruitment of human resources," said Kim Bong-man, head of the international cooperation team at the FKI.
The GPCI report also released evaluations by CEOs of global companies and professionals, such as researchers. When assessed by the two groups, respectively, Seoul's ranking dropped from ninth in 2015 to 28th in 2020 and from 10th to 29th.
Some of the cities that had high rankings had good scores in areas such as the number of startups, business-friendly systems, and flexible working conditions.
"In order for Seoul not to lag behind in the global competition to attract companies, investors and talented people, we need to prepare new momentum to improve the environment for investment and start-ups and ease regulations," Kim said. "In a sense, we need to look at cities that have risen in the rankings, such as Dublin in Ireland, which has dramatically lowered corporate taxes, and Toronto, which has emerged as the best city for artificial intelligence (AI) startups."
