Evaluation of Sustainable Development in China’s Pilot Free Trade Zones: Based on PCA-AHP Comprehensive Evaluation

This paper aims to scientifically evaluate the sustainable development level of China’s pilot free trade zones (FTZs) and provide empirical support for policy optimization. Taking 22 Chinese FTZs from 2013 to 2022 as research samples, we construct a six-dimensional evaluation system, including environmental optimization, economic development, opening-up, radiation-driven capacity, business environment, and scientific and technological innovation, and use principal component analysis (PCA) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for comprehensive measurement. The results show the following: (1) The overall sustainable development level of FTZs presents an upward trend with significant regional differences—coastal FTZs grow rapidly, inland FTZs grow steadily, and border FTZs grow slowly. (2) The 2022 comprehensive scores show a gradient distribution, and regional development imbalance is prominent. (3) Economic development and opening-up are the core driving dimensions, while environmental optimization and radiation-driven capacity have relatively low weights and weak contributions. The marginal contribution of this paper is the construction of a multi-dimensional standardized evaluation system for FTZ sustainable development and clarification of regional differentiation characteristics and driving mechanisms. Based on this, this paper puts forward targeted policy suggestions: implementing differentiated empowerment according to coastal, inland and border FTZ positioning, promoting cross-regional experience sharing, and establishing a dynamic monitoring mechanism to narrow the development gap and achieve high-quality coordinated development.