Foreigners in Beijing now account for around 1 percent of the capital’s population, says China Daily.
According to a report released by the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, the number of overseas nationals living in the city – including those living and working in Beijing as well as overseas students and tourists – now exceeds 170,000, which is roughly 1 percent of the capital’s official population of 17.55 million. In addition, of the total number of overseas nationals, the number of long-term expats in the city last year was 110,000.
Dai Jianzhong, researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said the population of foreigners is “one of the indexes by which the internalization level of a city is measured”. “The index shows whether a city has attracted capital and talent, and whether it is active in global economics”, he said. He added that the population of foreigners often accounts for more than 10 percent in other major cities – for example, in Paris, the number of foreigners is 25 percent of the population and foreigners account for 33 percent of London’s population.
The report goes on to suggest that Beijing should try to increase the number of foreigners living here and “improve both the hard and soft environment to increase its attractiveness”.