Guangzhou edged out Shanghai to take the top spot on the list of best commercial cities on the Chinese mainland, according to the Chinese version of Forbes, the world's leading financial media outlet.

Forbes China released its seventh Forbes Best Commercial Cities on the Chinese Mainland list on Oct. 12.

While Shanghai lost first place due to its high operating costs, the Yangtze River Delta cities still make up one-third of the seats.

Beijing held steady at last year's place and ranks sixth.

The list shows the spending power and economic viability in the county-level cities of the eastern developed regions are outstanding, and their innovation ability is also eye-catching.

At a time when city competition is changing from an emphasis on large-scale growth to the improvement of quality, the competitiveness of the cities that have undergone successful transformation has been greatly increased, said Liu Ruiming, Forbes Chinese executive editor.

For example, Suzhou jumped from the 10th to the fifth by encouraging entrepreneurship, tax cuts and other measures to significantly reduce operating costs. It attracted a large amount of high-end talent to improve the industrial structure and committed to the transformation from "manufacturing" to "creating."

By Liang Jun, People's Daily Online