On October 28, 2023 China County/District High-quality Development Seminar was held in Chinese Academy of Social Science, with 2023 Development Report of High-quality Development of Towns in China released at the event site. The report also revealed the top 500 towns in China.

Out of 21k organic towns in China, there are 9 from Foshan. Remarkably, all towns in Nanhai District (6 in total, excluding Guicheng Sub-district) have listed and Shishan Town has achieved the top 1 place.

The ranking criteria includes three major indexes, economic strength, absorptive capacity of population and allocation ability of key factors. Economic strength is generally measured by the planned general public income. Absorptive capacity of population takes into account of permanent population size and the amount of permanent floating population. Additionally, the allocation ability of key factors refers to three figures, number of enterprises, number of industrial enterprises above scale, and the number of general merchandise store and supermarket (with business area above 50 sqm).