Shanghai announces plans to boost economic growth

Shanghai announced plans to boost confidence for promoting economic growth, including providing relief package for enterprises and facilitating high-quality development, official sources said on Sunday.

An action plan, consisting of 10 points, was released by the municipal government of Shanghai, on Sunday. According to the plan, three of the focus tasks, boosting confidence, expanding demand and seeking stable growth are imperative as the city is expected to achieve 5.5 percent GDP growth in 2023. 

"Considering that we have entered a new phase of COVID-19 response and economic recovery is not yet on a solid footing, it would be an arduous journey to achieve the 5.5 percent economic growth target. Therefore, we have formulated the action plan to boost confidence, expand demand expansion, and promote growth stabilization," said Wu Qing, executive vice-mayor of Shanghai said during a news conference on Sunday. 

Focused on stabilizing expectation, shoring up confidence, aiding enterprises in phases and push forward high-quality development, the action plan includes 10-item actions that range from bailing out enterprises, assisting companies to stabilize employment and create new posts, restoring consumption, extending investment, stabilizing foreign trade, retaining attraction to foreign investment, to elevating industrial innovation, creating world class business environment among others. 

The creation of the action plan was also based on the evaluation of previous measures in supporting businesses and solicitated suggestions from market entities, Wu said. 

According to Wu, in response to the challenges posed by COVID-19, Shanghai has launched three rounds of measures to help business and support economic growth throughout 2022, which had eased the burden of various market entities by more than 300 billion yuan ($44.25 billion) last year. 

"Efforts from all walks of life have contributed to the V-shaped recovery of Shanghai's economy," said Wu. 

Ruan Qing, deputy director of the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission said the city is also expected to see its fixed-asset investment grow at about 5 percent to reach the 1 trillion yuan mark in 2023.

"The scaling up in effective investment has played a key role in achieving stable growth in the past few years," Ruan said.