A nighttime view of Beijing. (File photo: IC)

Beijing has taken the ninth spot in a list of the world's top-performing cites, and Hangzhou and Suzhou have cracked the top 100 list for the first time, according to a report by the consultancy firm A.T. Kearney.

In its newly-issued 2019 Global Cities Report, the leading global management consulting firm assessed more than 130 global cities on their performance against 27 key metrics of business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement. The firm then produces two rankings: the Global Cities Index, which is a ranking of the most competitive and influential cities today; and the Outlook Index, which rank cities according to their potential for future success. More than 25 cities in China are included in the full index.

New York, London, and Paris continue to maintain their decade-long dominance of the top three spots on the Global Cities Index. On the Outlook index, London was assessed to be the city best placed to be a next-generation global hub, followed by Singapore. San Francisco, which took the top spot last year, dropped to third place.

Looking at the performance of cities in China over the past decade, the report describes them as rising stars. "In our initial 2008 Global Cities report, we ranked 60 cities, including seven key cities from China. These cities are quickly gaining ground on the rest of the world. In fact, the average Index scores of the original Chinese cities have grown three times faster than that of the North American cities, and in the Outlook, the Chinese cities improved 3.4 times faster than European cities," said the report.