For a long time, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou are the most developed cities in China and have become the places that many people yearn for. With the strong rise of Shenzhen, together with the north, Shanghai and Guangzhou, it has formed a well-known first-tier city.
However, because Shenzhen has completed its magnificent transformation from a small fishing village to an international metropolis like a rocket: in 2017, it achieved a regional GDP of 2,243.839 billion yuan, surpassing Guangzhou for the first time. In 2018, it achieved a regional GDP of 2,422.198 billion yuan, surpassing Hong Kong for the first time.
Guangzhou has changed from the former big brother to the second oldest, and the gap with Shenzhen is getting bigger and bigger, from 93.524 billion in 2017 to 136.263 billion in 2018 to 329.849 billion in 2019, it will naturally be "sung down", and some cities with good comprehensive strength have launched challenges to Guangzhou.
The first is Hangzhou, according to the "2016 China Big Data Unicorn Enterprise Development Report" released by the Beijing Great Wall Enterprise Strategy Institute, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hangzhou are the four cities where China's big data unicorn enterprises are most concentrated, so there is a saying of "going north to Hangzhou".
The second is Suzhou, although it is only an "ordinary" prefecture-level city, but the GDP has exceeded the two trillion mark, the total industrial output value above designated size is as high as 3.48 trillion, becoming an industrial power on an equal footing with Shenzhen and Shanghai, and a number of economic indicators have surpassed Guangzhou.
Tianjin has also launched a challenge to Guangzhou, but due to the dilemma of transformation and the lack of economic development, it has even withdrawn from the top ten cities in the country in 2020.
It has to be said that the most "threat" is Still Chongqing, the gap between the two is getting smaller and smaller, from 249.616 billion in 2018 to 2.283 billion in 2019, in the first half of 2020, Chongqing once led Guangzhou by 54.154 billion, and many people predict that Chongqing will surpass Guangzhou in 2020 and advance into the top four in the country.
But the final result is that Guangzhou will achieve a regional GDP of 2501.911 billion yuan in 2020, Chongqing will achieve 2500.279 billion yuan, and Guangzhou will hold the position of the fourth city with a slight advantage of 1.632 billion.
However, it is only a matter of time before Chongqing surpasses Guangzhou with the size of a province, and it is likely that it will surpass Shanghai in the future and become the first city in China.
So, will Guangzhou really be squeezed out of first-tier cities? Considering a city, it should be the sum of economic, political, cultural, scientific and technological, educational, medical, transportation and other aspects, rather than "GDP only".
From the perspective of comprehensive strength, Guangzhou is second only to Beijing and Shanghai, ranking third in the country, and its position is very stable. On this point, it can be seen from the various rankings at home and even international that no one can successfully get into the position by challenging it!