The city of Wuxi, Jiangsu province ranked eighth on a recently released Forbes' list of China's best business cities 2015, taking the lead in the nation's prefecture-level cities.

A business city is judged on the basis of eight indices: talent index, city scale index, consumption index, passenger and freight transportation index, operating cost index, capital vigor index and innovation index. Wuxi has fared especially well in innovation capacity and reserves of talent.

As a traditional highland of the manufacturing industry, the city has used industrial transformation to find its future direction: to develop an intelligent, green and high-end industrial city, with innovation as the driving force.

According to the list report, the city of Wuxi is vigorously advancing its talent pool project and has brought in nine Nobel laureates and eleven foreign academicians to participate in its research institution construction with local private enterprises. A newly founded European & American Fraternity Base attracts outstanding overseas students to stay in the city contributing to its development.

"To compete with neighboring megacities like Shanghai and Nanjing," said Cao Bingru, a business professor from Jiangnan University, "Wuxi has to be determined to introduce high-caliber personnel and high-end techniques."

This year, the city's USUN Biochemical Technology Company invited Bengt Samuelsson, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine 1982 to join its research group. Later, the company was awarded the first registration certificate for medical treatment appliances in the field of mussel adhesive protein in the world, which promoted its internationalization and helped it gain more attention from investors.

Professor Cao said the Forbes' list is for reference only. He regards a solid industrial foundation as the most critical part in the optimization of a city's business environment. Wuxi has recently released new policies to help promote modern industries and support the construction of the service industry, encouraging scientific research innovation. In the view of one expert, through industrial upgrading the city will surely attract more investment projects in the future.