The competitiveness of urban landscapes is a subject of growing attention as cities strive to become the best places to support enterprises, economic development, and high-quality living while preserving environmental resources. In evaluations of urban competitiveness, financial factors are frequently emphasized. In this systematic study for the future sustainable urban landscape (SUL), we use the instance of Penang Island, Malaysia, to present an integrated methodology for finding, evaluating, and validating good indicators for developing an urban landscape index that balances economic, sociocultural, and environmental factors. First, we provide a framework for developing such an index by developing a Delphi Analytical Hierarchy Process (DAHP) model that aids in choosing the most important aspects and sub criteria affecting the sustainability of urban landscapes. Then, under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), we demonstrate how to use these data to assess the competitiveness of various zones on Penang Island, namely Bayan Lepas and George Town. According to the quantitative results of the DAHP model, economic criteria, which were given a weight of 0.595 and a corresponding inconsistency (CI) of 0.04, had a greater influence on Penang Island’s urban landscape than environmental criteria, which were given a weight of 0.276 and a CI of 0.02, and social and cultural criteria, which were given a weight of 0.128 and a CI of 0.08. In terms of economic criteria, Zone 1 has a weight of 0.360, which indicates that it has less sway than Zone 2, which has a weight of 0.636. In the discussion, we highlight the essential elements of the methodology to assess the competitiveness of urban environments.

This paper systematically explores the dynamic effects of foreign direct investment (FDI), foreign trade, technological innovation, and human capital across China’s 28 sub-industries. The results show that FDI and foreign trade significantly promote manufacturing output growth, while technological innovation and human capital have a more sensitive response to growth fluctuations in the short term. The Granger causality test shows that FDI, technological innovation, and human capital all have strong predictive power and can effectively predict the future trend of manufacturing output. The impulse response function and variance decomposition analysis further reveal the key role of these factors in promoting the manufacturing industry’s long-term sustainable development. Based on the above findings, this paper suggests that local government should continue to optimize the structure and quality of attracting foreign capital, increase the support for technology research and development and intelligent manufacturing, enhance the added value of export products, and strengthen human capital investment so as to promote China’s manufacturing industry’s high-quality and sustainable development and provide reference for other developing countries’ manufacturing development.

Under the rapid development of the digital economy, the interactive relationship between exports and the digital economy has become an important issue for promoting regional economic growth. Based on the panel data of 31 provinces and municipalities in China from 2012 to 2022, this paper systematically examines the impact of exports on economic growth and the moderating role of the digital economy, and it introduces research and development (R&D) investment to test its mediating mechanism. The research finds that exports significantly promote regional economic growth. The digital economy has a negative moderating effect on the export growth effect, and it is significant in the eastern region but not significant in the central and western regions, showing obvious regional heterogeneity. R&D investment has played a partial mediating role between exports and economic growth. This paper suggests that the government should focus on regional differences, promote the deep integration of the digital economy and exports, enhance technological innovation capabilities, formulate differentiated policies based on local conditions, strengthen the construction of digital infrastructure, optimize the export structure, support the development of R&D-driven enterprises, and build a digital export system that promotes regional coordination and high-quality growth, so as to achieve high-quality coordinated sustainable regional development. This paper also has certain reference value for other developing economies, in promoting the integration of the digital economy and trade.

The evolution of labour market demands, and technological advancements have driven the rise of micro-credentials as flexible alternatives to traditional higher education qualifications. Starting from policy analysis, stakeholder opinions, and best practices, this essay examines challenges and opportunities in the assessment of micro- credentials in Europe and Southeast Asia, highlighting the importance of promoting standardized definitions, quality assurance, and alignment between academia and industry.