Abstract: This study employs panel data from 283 Chinese cities spanning 2012 to 2021 to construct a measurement”“high efsystem for urban and national strategic zones’new quality productive forces, characterized by “high technology,”ficiency," and “high quality.” Based on this framework, the Dagum Gini coelficient is applied to decompose the regionaldisparities in new quality productive forces across six major strategic zones. Furthermore, a spatial panel regression model isused to examine both o-convergence and B-convergence. The results reveal several key findings. First, the level of newquality productive forces in Chinese cities-both nationwide and within the six strategic zones-has shown continuousgrowth during 2012-2021. Second, significant and deepening regional imbalances exist in the development of new qualitproductive forces, with interregional disparities constituting the main source of these differences. Third, the spatial distribution of new quality productive forces exhibits a multipolar patterm at both the national and regional levels. Finally, both oconvergence and B-convergence are observed in the development of new quality productive forces nationwide and across allstrategic regions. These findings provide critical insights into the current state of urban new quality productive forces in China and hold significant implications for promoting, coordinated and synergistic development of such forces across regions.

Key words: new quality productive forces, development level measure, characterization, distribution dynamics, convergence