Good News! Qingdao Was Awarded “The Happiest City of China 2020”


Q ingdao Daily / G uanghai News

Reported by Qingdao Daily/Guanhai News on November 18    Qingdao has been included as one of the China’s Happiest City 2020 as released on Happy Cities of China Forum held in Hangzhou at around 5 PM today. This is another honor of Qingdao after it was named one of the top 10 "Most Attractive Cities in China for Foreign Talents" not long ago, and kept the title of "National Civilized City" after being rechecked and confirmed by the Central Civilization Office and was circulated for praise. Xue Qingguo, member of the Standing Committee of Municipal Party Committee and Vice Mayor, attended and made a keynote speech.

Xue Qingguo, member of the Standing Committee of Municipal Party Committee and Vice Mayor, was invited to give a keynote speech on the spot.

The event was jointly organized by Oriental Outlook and Outlook Think Tank of Xinhua News Agency. With the theme of "People's City, Happy and Well-off" and the focus on fine urban governance, people's joint contribution and sharing, and assistance in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the event conducted a survey on the happiness of Chinese cities and promoted vivid practices of happy cities. Through strict selection of big data collection, questionnaire survey, material application, field research, expert evaluation and other parts, Qingdao was selected as one of "China’s Happiest City 2020". Other provincial capitals and cities with independent planning status included together with Qingdao are Chengdu, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Changsha, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Xining and Xi 'an.

On the site of the activity, the "China's Happiest City Report 2020" was interpreted with the theme of "artificial intelligence helps to establish happy cities" to interpret city's happiness password with big data. Leaders from Qingdao, Chengdu, Wenzhou and other cities made keynote speeches.

Feng Yingbing, the Secretary of the Party Committee and Chief Editor of Oriental Outlook interpreted China’s Happiest City Report 2020.

It is reported that the "China's Happiest City Survey & Selection" has been held successfully for 14 years. It has always adhered to the people-centered principle with the concept of "being evaluated by citizen, recording faithfully and analyze accurately", and scientifically refined the national strategy and people's will into the evaluation index of urban happiness, which has attracted extensive attention from experts, scholars, city managers and all sectors of society. China's Happiest City Laboratory established under the direction of Oriental Outlook, has put forward City Happiness Index System Based on Big Data, including nine primary indexes of employment, income, quality of life, ecological environment, city attraction, public security, education, transportation, and medical health and hundreds of secondary subdivision indexes. The event has continuously improved questionnaire survey, big data collection and mining, and other survey means with continuously enhanced credibility, and a total of more than 1 billion people participating in. It has become the most influential urban survey and selection activity in China.

Happy Cities of China Forum 2020 Live

"Qingdao has always been at the forefront of opening up. In recent years, Qingdao has been opening to invite partners from all over the world, which has also attracted talents from all over the world. This time, Qingdao are prominent in such livelihood indicators aspect as education and medical care of the whole comprehensive selection, which has launched a series of measures for the convenience and benefit of the people. At the same time, Qingdao helped enterprises quickly resume work and production under the background of COVID-19, and offered a top score." Gu Jiayun, Editorial Board Member of Oriental Outlook and news spokesperson of Happy Cities of China Forum 2020, told the reporter of Qingdao Daily/Guhai News that the survey and selection of China's Happiest Cities 2020 lasted for three months, when ten trillion times of big data capture were conducted during the big data collection process alone. Therefore, this achievement of honor of Qingdao is definitely hard-won. "In particular, it's important to note that in recent years, Qingdao has been very prominent in encouraging citizens to offer advice and suggestions. By carrying out the 'I Love Qingdao · I Have Dissatisfaction · I Want to Speak' public voice listening theme activity, citizens can express their specific opinions on a certain organ or unit, which will quickly form positive feedback and urge the solution of problems."

"As an important coastal central city and an international port city in China, Qingdao ranks first in terms of quality of life, urban attractiveness and educational resources." Dou Dejing, Director of the Big Data Lab and Business Intelligence Lab of Baidu Research Institute, analyzed the advantages of Qingdao in the survey and selection of the happiness city from the perspective of big data. In terms of quality of life, Qingdao has a long history, pleasant climate in four seasons, and outstanding performance in cultural leisure, intelligent life and other aspects. In addition, Qingdao has been a hot search city in cyberspace, which also shows its high employment and tourist attraction. In the long run, Qingdao is an international marine research and education center with 26 top universities including Qingdao Campus of Shandong University and Ocean University of China. Abundant secondary and higher education resources are also important bases for Qingdao to maintain its long-term happiness and urban competitiveness.

People's city is designed for the people, whether the city is livable or not is related to people's livelihood, overall situation, and future. Only by building cities in an orderly way, developing them appropriately, and operating them efficiently, can we build modern cities that are harmonious and livable, full of vitality and with their own characteristics, and make our people live a happier life. Qingdao is the pearl of the splendid Yellow Sea, the civilization harbor of harmony and friendship, the frontier of reform and opening up, and the happy island of youth. In recent years, General Secretary Xi Jinping has placed great hopes on Qingdao's development, putting forward such important instructions as "successfully hosting a conference and invigorating a city", building a modern international metropolis, establishing a new platform for "One Belt & One Road" international cooperation, and integrating ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River basin. Along with the grand blueprint outlined by the General Secretary Xi, Qingdao has clearly set up the strategic goal of "invigorating a city", actively engaged in the new development pattern of "double cycle", and further defined its development orientation in three directions: In the province, give full play to the role of the central cities of Jiaodong Economic Circle and build Shandong into a bridgehead of opening up and developing to the world; in the country, build a new strategic fulcrum for the opening up of countries north of the Yangtze River; in the world, establish a new "One Belt & One Road" platform for international cooperation and foster an open environment in which the east and the west benefit from each other and the land, sea and other areas are interconnected.

While promoting high-level opening up and high-quality economic development, Qingdao has always firmly adhered to the concept of people-centered development. It not only seized the significant opportunities for development, launched 15 strong measures, such as city quality improvement and international fashion city construction, but constantly gathered up the strong social positive energy of "Loving Qingdao and making it better" through "Burning Passion to Promote Qingdao's Development" practical theme activity and "I Love Qingdao · I Have Dissatisfaction · I Want to Speak" public voice listening theme activity, so as to speed up the construction of an open, modern, dynamic and fashionable international metropolis. It has enhanced financial input to benefit the people, increased items of practical municipal services year by year, improved the modernization of urban governance system and capacity, advanced the city's reputation and attractiveness, and enhanced the people's sense of gain, happiness, and security with better state of mind. (Yang Qiqi Reporter of Qingdao Daily/Guanhai News/article/picture)

Editor in charge: Wang Fengyi