Wuxi residents saw their per capita disposable income increase by 9.1 percent year-on-year during the first half of this year, to hit at 27,690 yuan ($3,937.5). [Photo/IC]

Wuxi residents saw their per capita disposable income increase by 9.1 percent year-on-year during the first half of this year, to hit at 27,690 yuan ($3,937.5), Wuxi Municipal?Statistics Bureau?reported on Aug 12.

The increase marked the highest level in the past five years thanks to the city's steady and high-quality economic development.

At the same time, Wuxi ranked 13th among a ranking of the top 100 Chinese cities in terms of their GDP in the first half of 2019, released by the 21 Data News Laboratory recently.

Wuxi showed its strong economic competitiveness among the top 20 with actual growth rates exceeding 7 percent, higher than that of Shanghai and Beijing.

The top 20 cities had a total GDP of 16.16 trillion yuan during the period, contributing 35.84 percent of the nation's total, an increase of 1.2 percentage points over the same period last year.

Huang Qi, founder of a newly-built technology company in Wuxi, said he has enjoyed a sound business environment and convenient services for entrepreneurship in Wuxi.

He added that he only needed to visit government offices twice in order to apply for a startup loan and a college-graduate business fund, which both arrived after four months.

In recent years, Wuxi has rolled out various measures to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. A total of 84,000 people were newly employed in urban areas in the first half of the year.