A new report finds Auckland is on the rise, but still risks falling behind other cities if it doesn't keep up the momentum.This year's State of the City report said Auckland hosted a higher share of international students for its population than most other cities.It also placed Auckland as the 75th strongest business ecosystem, up 11 places from the year before.That was ahead of cities like Portland, Fukuoka, Lisbon and Bogota, and well ahead of Wellington and Christchurch which were placed 141st and 261st respectively.But Mark Thomas, director of the Committee for Auckland which commissioned the report, said the city shouldn't rest on its laurels."Even though we are making progress, what's happening is our peer cities around the world, and other cities in more developing economies, are making faster progress," he said."The risk is if we don't get on top of some of these challenges holding us back we will slip down the rankings."He said Auckland had several assets, which had helped build the city's profile."It's encouraging to see that in areas like the numbers of people coming to New Zealand, the innovation momentum, the amount of venture capital deals that are happening, and also our enduring exceptional natural asset base ... that those things are being maintained or growing, and so that's very positive," he said."And of course we continue to have a very strong attraction from international students. We're topping the pops with our appeal from an international students' point of view."Committee for Auckland director Mark Thomas.RNZ / Cole Eastham-FarrellyBut he said there was a "conversion gap" in turning those assets into long term gains."We're not turning enough of these assets and the progress we're making into stronger productivity, so we still lag as a city compared to those we measure around the world," Thomas said.A whopping 73 percent of international visitors moved through Auckland, but the city only captured 29 percent of visitor spending."And although, as I mentioned, we're good at attracting international students, we've got a lot more to do [moving them into] the skilled roles that our business and growth sectors need," he said.While local start ups were attracting investors, he said many were leaving New Zealand as they scaled up.He said implementing the Auckland Deal, and making sure it stayed on track, was essential."That's a really important policy development for New Zealand, they've been doing these things in the UK for 15 years, frankly it's part of the reason they have a mayor as their prime minister, because the Manchester City Deal has been able to help cities and regions make more progress than they would otherwise have been able to," he said."It's a partnership between government and council, and there are going to be things we'll disagree on, the visitor levy is one of those things, but where we can't resolve one issue we've got to move onto others, and so things like the Advanced Technology Institute that's been shoulder tapped for Auckland, let's get moving more quickly to establish that."Thomas said the city deserved a pat on the back for its progress and its assets, but the report was also an opportunity to get serious about the challenges ahead.