Top 10 attractive cities for China expats — 2012 edition

The results of China’s annual expat survey, conducted from September to December last year, are in. More than 175,000 expats participated in the survey via both online and offline voting.

The 10 cities were selected based on their performance in terms of policy and administration, as well as working and living environment for foreigners. Criteria required the cities be prefecture-level or above, and excluded Hong Kong, Macau and any cities in Taiwan.

Below is a quick summary. For the full story, see the People’s Daily article.

#10 – Qingdao, Shandong

• Pros: Favorable living environment.
• Cons: Administrative environment, children’s education and level of globalization.

#9 – Xiamen, Fujian

• Pros: Exceptional living environment and favorable entrepreneurial environment.
• Cons: Foreigners’ salaries are lower than expected.

#8 – Tianjin

• Pros: Health care working environments.
• Cons: Policy environment requires improvement.

#7 – Nanjing, Jiangsu

• Pros: Attractive living environment. Promising future work policies and career development opportunities.
• Cons: Unsatisfactory administration due to institutional and procedural issues. Low salary.

#6 – Hangzhou, Zhejiang

• Pros: Favorable living environment, especially its abundant natural environment. Optimistic outlook for future career development opportunities in the city.
• Cons: Low marks for its working and entrepreneurial environment and salary.

#5 – Kunming, Yunnan

• Pros: Good administrative environment, and an attractive living environment.
• Cons: Lacking cohesive policies to attract and hire talent. Healthcare and education could be improved.

#4 – Suzhou, Jiangsu

• Pros: Balanced development. Human settlement environment, working and entrepreneurial environment and promotion opportunities.
• Cons: Administrative environment could be improved.

#3 – Shenzhen, Guangdong

• Pros: Attractive working environment, and high salaries. High marks in terms of its development plan.
• Living environment was graded unsatisfactory, particularly in regards to health care and children’s education.

#2 – Beijing

• Pros: Outstanding administrative environment, policy environment, health care environment and children’s education.
• Cons: Natural environment of habitat, working environment and traffic.

#1 – Shanghai

• Pros: international atmosphere and multicultural environment. Health care and children’s education.
• Cons: Administrative and natural environments.

What do you think? Any obvious misses or glaring bias? Pretty accurate?