Tongzhou district in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu province, achieved remarkable results in social and economic development in the past 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20). [Photo/WeChat account: wxtzfb]

The 2021 white paper on high-quality development of China's urban areas, compiled by the urban economic research center of CCID Consulting, was published on Aug 17.

CCID Consulting falls directly under aegis of the China Electronic Information Industry Development Research Institute at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Among the top 10, four districts are in Shenzhen and three are in Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong province, one is in Qingdao in East China's Shandong province, and one is in Suzhou in East China's Jiangsu province.

The prefecture-level city of Nantong in Jiangsu has all of its three districts on the list, with Chongchuan at the 38th position, Tongzhou at 47th, and Haimen at 54th.

The list was based on an assessment system focusing on five major indicators relating to economic strength, growth drivers, and sharing development. The regional gross domestic product of the districts had to be at least 80 billion yuan ($12.3 billion) and the revenue in general public budgets had to be at least 2 billion yuan.

Data in the white paper show that the top 100 districts release large amounts of energy with a small amount of resources. With less than 0.2 percent of the country's land area, they produced 8.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

In 2020, Tongzhou district achieved 146.25 billion yuan in regional GDP and 6.67 billion yuan in general public budget revenue. It also received honors for its development potential and business environment.