Interview with Boston Consulting Group Guo Yi: Comparing Tokyo, Singapore and San Francisco, how can Chinese cities promote the construction of international consumer centers?

21st Century Business Herald reporter Li Guo reported from Chengdu

Promoting the construction of an international consumption center city has become a new goal of many domestic cities, and is considered to be one of the ways to promote the competitiveness of cities through consumption.

Judging from the construction experience of other international cities in terms of consumption, can it provide inspiration for the construction of Chinese cities? Do domestic cities have the conditions to take the lead in initially building an international consumption center city? To this end, the 21st Century Business Herald reporter interviewed Guo Yi, managing director and global partner of the Boston Consulting Group. Guo Yi analyzed the experience of international city construction from three dimensions and looked forward to the opportunities for Chinese cities in the future.

(Above: Guo Yi.) Photo courtesy of the interviewee)

There are three models for the construction of international consumption center cities

21st century: At present, about 20 cities in China have announced that they will cultivate and build international consumption center cities, why is international consumption center cities so important, and how do you understand this concept?

Guo Yi: The concept of an international consumption center city represents a further concrete understanding of the functions of international large cities, and it can be said that becoming a "consumption center" is the standard of some first-class cities in the world, which often have a strong ability to gather consumer resources, and at the same time can occupy the commanding heights in the consumer market of a country or even the world.

By building an international consumer city, it is possible to guide and drive consumer behavior. Only after consumption, especially international consumption, is pulled up, can it have a better driving effect on the national economy of the country.

21st Century: If you want to measure whether a city is an international consumer center, what dimensions can you start from?

Guo Yi: From the overall point of view, the international consumption center city includes three dimensions, the first is the embodiment of the city itself, especially the soft power dimension; The second is the dimension of international network or degree of internationalization; The third is to see whether the city has enough market space, such as the urban agglomeration we often say, if there is no higher energy level of the urban agglomeration behind the support, it is difficult for a single city to grow into a real international consumption center city.

Specifically, urban soft power refers to the industrial competitiveness of the city, which includes the transfer of industrial results from the secondary industry to the tertiary industry, and in this process, it shows the importance that the local government attaches to the service industry or the consumer industry, and also includes the gradual improvement of the overall governance system of a city.

The second dimension examines a city's ability to integrate and integrate with international consumption, such as the number of first stores introduced, and whether it can keep pace with the latest international consumption trends. In the past, we mainly promoted the integration of the supply chain of the secondary industry, especially the production and manufacturing industry, with foreign countries, and now it is the turn of the tertiary industry, especially to promote the integration of the supply chain in the consumer field with foreign countries.

In the third dimension, any international consumption center city is not built by its own efforts alone, but must rely on urban agglomerations. Only when the status of a central city is established in the urban agglomeration can it become an international consumption center city. For example, in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area or the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, only after establishing the status of the center in this urban agglomeration, and occupying a certain highland in the world through the radiation of the urban agglomeration, it is possible to become an international consumption center city. Therefore, these three dimensions can clearly define what is an international consumption center city.

21st Century: Globally, which overseas cities can currently be called international consumption center cities? What are the most critical aspects of their competitiveness or attractiveness in terms of consumption?

Guo Yi: Looking at the world, we can divide international consumption center cities into three categories. The first category is the political center city or economic center city of each country or major economy, such as New York, Tokyo, London, Paris, these cities are already the commanding heights of their own countries in terms of energy level, so their urban soft power naturally draws on the essence of their own countries. Secondly, precisely because these cities are the political and economic centers of a country, they are also highly internationalized, and these countries will build urban agglomerations around their capitals or central cities. Therefore, the "No. 1 city" or "No. 2 city" of various countries naturally has the conditions to become an international consumption center city from a certain point of view.

The second type is the hub-level cities in the international trading system, such as Singapore, Dubai, etc., which no longer rely on the strength of a certain country or a certain region, but on the basis of the geographical location conditions of the city itself, gather all kinds of trade resources and elements from all over the world, including consumer goods and tourists, so as to create another form of international consumption center city.

The third category is the international consumption center cities that have grown up by relying on the aggregation of talents and industries. For example, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Boston, etc., these cities are not only the regional economic centers of a country, but more importantly, they have a strong ability to attract new industries and innovative talents, and subsequently bring together a large number of consumption resources of emerging industries.

Integration into the international consumer order is essential

21st century: You just mentioned three different forms of international consumption center cities, and now Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other cities have issued their own cultivation and construction plans, if you compare, then what is the difference between China's cities and the existing international consumption center cities?

Guo Yi: First of all, I think that the strength of Chinese cities themselves is constantly improving, so there is not much gap between the macroeconomic level of GDP and other major cities in the world, and the main gap is reflected in the "consumption center" itself, especially Chinese cities need to explore and gradually become a mature consumption center city.

China has several national central cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, etc., which need to do several aspects of work in the future. The first is to accelerate the integration into the international market, in the past we established a "world factory" and integrated into the global industrial chain, but this is mainly based on industrial products, and what we need to do in the future is to integrate our culture, city brand image, business environment, foreign investment introduction and application rules, etc., so as to better integrate seamlessly with the international market. And it can be expected that this integration process is more arduous than the integration of the industrial industry chain at that time, because it involves the problem of cultural differences, so this is not a simple thing and takes a certain amount of time.

Second, what is more important is how to upgrade the consumption atmosphere and consumption environment of our central city to a higher level in the process of integrating into the international market. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other cities and major foreign cities, there will not be much difference in material life, but the competitiveness of the consumption atmosphere and consumption environment is not enough, for example, our policy of attracting international consumer brands to enter the Chinese market can be further improved, and too many thresholds should not be set, which is equivalent to the system of negative lists, and further relax the access conditions. For example, cities such as Shenzhen and Hangzhou can refer to the model of San Francisco and Boston, emphasizing the introduction and gathering of talents to build international consumption center cities, which are not only talents in the secondary industry, but also talents in the fields of science and technology innovation, cultural creation and other fields in the tertiary industry.

The third point is to enhance the competitiveness of the industrial ecological chain. For example, cities such as Shenzhen and Hangzhou are still based on manufacturing, and if urban competitiveness wants to continue to go up, it should be made from more aspects such as design, release, marketing, etc., to form a complete closed-loop ecological chain of the consumer industry.

21st century: According to the above understanding, which cities in China may be the first to truly grow international consumption centers? What is the basis for judgment?

Guo Yi: First of all, I am more optimistic about Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other cities, which have a relatively large GDP scale and can drive the common breakthrough and development of "northern cities, eastern coastal cities and southern coastal cities" in terms of geographical units, and these three cities are backed by the huge consumption hinterlands of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta and Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. For the future, who can take the lead in making breakthroughs in the integration of the international consumption order, who can grow better and faster into an international consumption center city.

The second is similar to cities with hub conditions such as Singapore or Dubai, such as cities that have taken the lead in the construction of pilot free trade zones in China and have strong competitive airports or seaport resources. For example, for Hainan, taking Singapore or Dubai as a model, the construction of an international tourism consumption island is worth adhering to for a long time. At present, Hainan has received a lot of encouragement and support from the policy, but the main problem of Hainan is how to enhance its own soft power construction, can enhance its own consumer goods supply side strength, so as to truly become a hub that can promote domestic and international double circulation.

The third is that cities with the ability to gather innovative talents and innovative enterprises, such as Shenzhen and Hangzhou, also have the hope of becoming international consumption centers. There are many highly educated young talents here, and many innovative companies are constantly emerging, which can jointly create many new consumption scenarios and new consumer products. However, the current problem is that the internal logic of the development of the consumer industry in these cities needs to be strengthened, in order to more actively upgrade the level of their own cities and integrate into the international consumption order.

21st Century: Just now you have been emphasizing the international consumer order, please explain this more.

Guo Yi: In the international consumer industry, the international consumption order itself has an industrial chain. This industrial chain does not have a very clear upstream and downstream relationship like the secondary industry. It includes the promotion platform and design platform of consumer goods brands, as well as the platform of consumer debut. This order has formed its existing system in the world, and what Chinese cities have to do is to integrate it on the one hand, and to break the order on the other hand, in a way, to form our own order and gain the recognition of the international market.

For example, we go to create the first platform for international consumer goods, such as to establish a consumer goods design talent gathering place, and then form a cultivation base for some innovative consumption concepts. To add in one sentence, compared with the international first-class cities proposed in the past, the currently proposed international consumption center cities actually reflect an evolution of the government in urban governance, and the characteristics of international consumption center cities are more distinct and the demands are more targeted. With the construction of international consumption center cities, in the future, there may also be international cultural center cities in the mainland, or international center cities in a single industry, which I think is actually a very good direction for China's future international city construction.

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