Taicang, a county-level city in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, ranked 6th on a list of China's 100 most competitive county-level cities and counties, one place up from last year, according to a report from the National Academy of Economic Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on Dec 1.

The city also secured 6th place in the academy's list of the top 100 Chinese counties with the greatest investment potential.

The academy first selected the top 400 from nearly 2,000 county-level regions in China for further analysis, research, and comparison based on factors such as the size of the local economy, regional fiscal revenue, number of enterprises above designated size, and competitive strength among surrounding regions.

Next, the academy developed an indicator system to evaluate a region's economic competitiveness and investment potential and carried out an empirical study on the top 400 for the final report.

Taicang has been ramping up efforts to promote economic and social development while curbing the COVID-19 epidemic since the beginning of 2020, and the county-level city has seen a rebound in economic development in the past year despite the negative impact of the novel coronavirus.

In the first three quarters, Taicang's regional GDP reached 99.31 billion yuan ($15.21 billion), a year-on-year increase of 2.9 percent. From January to October, the revenue in general public budgets surpassed 14.83 billion yuan, up 5 percent from the previous year. Moreover, the actual use of foreign investment in the first 10 months of 2020 grew by 122.4 percent year-on-year to $810 million.