(Yicai Global) July 12 -- Shanghai has topped an index which ranks cities from around the world on the degree of openness and breadth of coverage of local government data for the second time, The Paper reported.

Shanghai achieved a score of 0.5774, according to the Open Data Index of Important Global Cities released at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on July 10. The report, now in its third year, ranks 30 major global cities on the basic reliability, quality, usage and coverage of their data.

There were five other Chinese cities in the top ten, according to compiler Green Digital Development Research Center of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Guiyang in southwestern Guizhou province ranked fifth, Guangzhou came seventh, Shenzhen eighth, Beijing ninth and Qingdao tenth. Hong Kong came in twelfth place.

Shanghai has many advantages that other cities cannot match, said Fan Jiajia, deputy secretary-general of the Green Digital Development Research Center. For example, the metropolis has formulated the country’s first local government regulations specifically on making data accessible to the public. As a result, some 99.89 percent of data sets are available. It has included open data in government work reports for three straight years and it is running a pilot project in inclusive finance.

However, Shanghai’s score fell 30.34 percent this year from last year, the report said. In order to remain in the top spot, Shanghai should formulate complete privacy policies for open platforms, update data in a timely manner, continue to cultivate open data innovation companies, enhance publicity for urban data openness, as well as initiate research on how open data contributes to the political, economic and social fields.

Editor: Kim Taylor