By Pan Yunhe

Whether China will continue to develop at a quick and healthy pace depends on whether its cities are developing well.

In the past three decades, manufacturing was cardinal to cities in China. In the next two decades, however, manufacturing will witness a higher level of development and in different markets.

Many experts say we need to transform our service industry. I believe that service industry must be transformed to cater to the needs of the manufacturing industry. These are some of the hard lessons learned in the development of many cities in Western countries.

Nowadays the per-capita GDP of cities in China is jumping from $400 to $500 and even $10,000 in some places. The outlook is so different from the past. With this outlook, we must think how to help industries develop and keep their pace over time.

A major concern is that we need to brand our cities. It is a big problem that many cities in China have not branded themselves.

Successful brands, in fact, can be achieved in three ways; by monopoly, reputation and innovations.

I think we need to strive in the last two ways, by reputations and by innovations. Generally speaking, in a market economy, a brand that survives more than 25 years is an important one.

A city must value its brands, such as Youngor, a manufacturer of men’s clothing in Ningbo. Given the right strategy, a shirt can sell at a higher price than that of a computer, which is highly possible.

Of course we need innovations, too. Only well-designed and marketed products can make a profit. Services must be innovative in terms of technology, designs and commercial patterns.

When they are incorporated and integrated, they can be great. In the age of smart cities, information about these flows must be collected, gathered, synthesize and analyzed to upgrade development of a city.

Pan Yunhe is a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He’s a computer applications technology specialist.