Most Innovative City in Asia Is...

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Singapore

Singapore is the most innovative city in the Asia Pacific region, according to a study by consultancy Solidiance.

The Lion City took the top spot after notching the highest average ranking across six criteria including human talent, knowledge creation, technology, society, government and global integration.

Sydney came in second, while Melbourne, Hong Kong and Auckland rounded out the top five spots among the sixteen urban centers identified in the Asia Pacific region.

The study was conducted over two years with the aim of identifying Asian cities best able to attract new business and talent.

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"Singapore is still a young city, and things are not always perfect but it has built the most attractive ecosystem for companies to innovate in Asia Pacific as it constantly strives for leapfrog improvements and visible changes. Problems are not shunned under the carpet but fast-addressed," said Damien Duhamel, managing partner for Asia Pacific of Solidiance, which is based in Singapore and counts Fortune 500 companies like Nokia, Microsoft and Canon among its clients.

Singapore's openness to other cultures was matched by no other city in Asia Pacific, the report found.

"The constantly evolving melting pot is not always easy to manage but creates real opportunities for those who are willing to grab it," he said.

New Delhi, Mumbai and Shanghai received the lowest scores, despite China and India being among Asia's fastest-growing economies.

The consultancy found that a city's level of innovation did not necessarily correlate with its size or its speed of growth.

"Being big and growing fast does not make you innovative... and in fact there are plenty of very large companies that were not very innovative and went Chapter 11," said Duhamel. "So innovation itself does not confuse fat with fast. At the same time, a city needs to be innovative not to grow quickly. It needs to be innovative to sustain its growth," he added.

The cities were scored based on interviews with city leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, activists, chief executive officers, political leaders, Non-Governmental Organizations and academics.