London still tops GFCI league table, as Asian centres gain, Dubai slides
Asian cities – including Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, Osaka, Beijing and Kuala Lumpur – gained ground, if not in all cases actually rising in the ranking, of the latest Global Financial Centres Index, which went live this morning in London.
London remained at the top of the table and New York also stayed in second place, although like London, its total score, which is based on an online survey of financial services executives around the world, fell.
In declining order, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and San Francisco stayed in third, fourth, fifth and sixth places, while Chicago rose one place to seventh as Sydney rose three places to eighth, as the election of Donald Trump, Brexit and other factors weighed on certain jurisdictions while boosting the prospects for others. (See excerpt from table, below.)
A new name on the main index, of 88 jurisdictions, was the Chinese city of Guangzhou, which entered the list in 37th place, above Qingdao, which rose to 38th from 46th place in last September’s ranking.
Of interest to “Gulfies” in the latest GFCI ranking will be the narrowing of the gap between Abu Dhabi – now in 28th place, from 32nd in the previous survey – and its more established United Arab Emirates rival, Dubai, which fell to 25th place from 18th.
In the GFCI 14 published in September, 2013, Dubai had been in 25th place and its neighbour and rival to the west was in 42nd place.
The latest edition of the GFCI was published in collaboration with the China Development Institute (CDI), in Shenzhen, according to Z/yen Group, a London-based research organisation which has been publishing the twice annual financial centres league table since 2007, and which established a “strategic partnership for research into financial centres” with the CDI in July 2016.
In a statement, Mark Yeandle, associate director of Z/Yen and author of the report, noted that the impact of Brexit in particular, as well as the election last November of Donald Trump.
“We live in uncertain times, and financial professionals hate uncertainty,” he said.
Brexit has caused uncertainty in Europe, and the election of Donald Trump has caused uncertainty globally.”
To see the survey online, click here. Below is an excerpt from the table.
GFCI 21 Ranks and Ratings
