Qingdao in East China's Shandong province is included on the list of China's new first-tier cities. [Photo/WeChat account: qd12301]

Qingdao in East China's Shandong province has been included on the list of China's new first-tier cities for nine consecutive years, news portal Yicai reported on May 30.

According to the report, Qingdao ranked 12th nationwide and 1st in Shandong province with a total score of 46.4.

The evaluation assesses the overall attractiveness of 337 cities at the prefecture-level or above using five primary criteria: concentration of commercial resources, urban transport capacity, vitality of urban population, new economic competitiveness and future potential, as well as 16 secondary criteria, and 61 third-level criteria.

The 15 new first-tier cities in 2024 in terms of their degree of attractiveness are: Chengdu, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Suzhou, Wuhan, Xi'an, Nanjing, Changsha, Tianjin, Zhengzhou, Dongguan, Wuxi, Ningbo, Qingdao, and Hefei.

According to Qingdao's development goals during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), becoming an international consumption center has become one of its most important development goals for the next five years.

According to the official statistics, the total retail sales of consumer goods in Qingdao reached 589.18 billion yuan ($81.31 billion) in 2022. Statistics also indicated that in 2022, Qingdao's total retail sales of consumer goods ranked second among the nine sub-provincial cities in northern China and had the highest growth rate.

This year, Qingdao will focus on promoting the "Qingdao Shopping" brand, accelerating the cultivation of new types of consumption, continuously create new consumption scenarios, and promote breakthroughs in the development of green consumption.