A view of the Lyusi Qibu Port in Qidong, a county-level city in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu province. [Photo/WeChat account: qidongfabu]

Qidong, a county-level city in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu province, ranked 16th on a list of China's top 100 counties in economic competitiveness, one place higher than last year, local media reported on Dec 18.

The list was released by the Zhongjun Research Institute.

Established in 1998, the Zhongjun Research Institute is a national professional think tank for county economic research and consultation.

Factors such as the county's gross domestic product, local public finance revenue, residents' incomes, sustainable economic development, air quality, growth rate of regional GDP, local public finance revenue, investment, and consumption were taken into account to evaluate the competitiveness of the county's economy.

In the first three quarters, the city's GDP reached 107.24 billion yuan ($15.35 billion), a year-on-year growth of 2.4 percent.

During this period, the city's total investment in fixed assets exceeded 46.79 billion yuan, up 3.3 percent year-on-year.

Investment in manufacturing, high-tech industries and construction and installation projects was 22.14 billion yuan, 11.32 billion yuan and 35.32 billion yuan up 14.8 percent, 57.1 percent and 22.8 percent year-on-year, respectively.