"After making tremendous contributions to raising the material well-being of the Chinese people in the past 30 years, Shenzhen has a new role to play in the reform, which is to improve the environment for people and businesses to prosper, and become an international modern city at par with Hong Kong and Singapore," he said.

However, Guo Wanda, vice-president of the Shenzhen-based China Development Institute, said the city must look to its own problems before it can stand alongside other international cities.

Citing one of his surveys, Guo said Shenzhen, though already on the way to becoming a developed economy, falls behind its overseas peers in many aspects, most notably in the efficient use of energy and resources.

The city's GDP per square kilometer, for instance, was only eleventh the size of Hong Kong's. Its water use efficiency measured by consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP was less than a third of that of Japan.

Official figures show its GDP is only half of Hong Kong's, but its population and land area are double.

Apart from an unsustainable economic growth mode, other problems, such as corruption and labor exploitation, also exist.

Former mayor Xu Zongheng was formally removed from his post in mid-August for having abused his office to make profits for others, taking bribes and leading a corrupt lifestyle. And the suicides of 12 Foxconn employees this year also put Shenzhen in the limelight for all the wrong reasons.

Guo said the two issues are "convincing evidence" that economic growth alone cannot guarantee a service-oriented government and satisfaction for ordinary people.

"Thorny issues such as the widening wealth gap, corruption, unbalanced development and insufficient public services all need to be addressed soon," he said.