Tokyo has regained its position in the top 10 of the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI), improving following a pandemic-timed dip.

Released on Thursday by London commercial think tank and consultancy Z/Yen, the 39th edition of the ranking placed Tokyo in 10th place — up from 15 the previous year.

Osaka also saw an improved ranking — from 36th last year to 26th.

In the top three spots are New York, London and Hong Kong.

Six centers from Asia and the Pacific are in the most recent top 10. Shenzhen sits in ninth place and Shanghai in sixth — up from last year’s eighth place. Seoul climbed from 10th place to eighth.

As part of the report, researchers examined views on regulation and what was deemed the most important by survey participants.

“The most important factor was predictability, followed by the speed of regulatory response, flexibility, and the quality of regulation,” the report said.

The study relies on a questionnaire and also uses AI to map other indicators, including quantitative data to score cities across five metrics of competitiveness: human capital, infrastructure, business environment, financial sector development and reputation.

“The gap between the leading four centres is tight … Dubai and Tokyo join the top 10, replacing Chicago and Los Angeles,” the accompanying report said, noting that “the data on which the index is based predates the recent conflict in the Middle East and the relative stability in the leading centres in the index may be affected by the outcome of those events.” 

Tokyo was also among the centers that the GFCI questionnaire respondents felt would grow in significance in the next two to three years.

Back in March 2007, Tokyo was in 9th place, and even ranked as high as third place in March 2020. During the pandemic its position dropped, and in September 2022 it was no longer in the top 10, which the report hypothesized was linked to pandemic-era travel restrictions and  “comparatively slow consumer recovery.”

It fell out of the top 21 in March 2023.

While Tokyo saw improvement, some cities slipped. Among the most significant drops were Chicago, falling from 6th to 14th place, and Washington, which went from 13th to 17th.

The group first released the ranking in 2007. A total of 137 financial centers are studied for the research, which has been carried out in collaboration with China Development Institute (CDI) in Shenzhen since 2016. The ranking is updated each March and September.