Shanghai economic numbers reflect overall recovery

Shanghai saw its first-quarter GDP, or gross domestic product, gain 3 percent to 1.05 trillion yuan, according to official sources.

The city's key indicators improved, market vitality continuously enhanced, prices and employment remained stable and market expectation and confidence is increasing, an unidentified official from the Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau was quoted as saying by Jiefang Daily on Saturday.

Primary industries' added value rose 1.7 percent to 1.8 billion yuan in the first three months this year and tertiary industries increased by 4.3 percent to 818.1 billion yuan in the same period, while secondary industries saw a 0.9 percent decrease to 233.7 billion yuan, according to the local statistics bureau.

In the first quarter, the city's industrial added value of designated size enterprises — those with annual revenue of 20 million yuan or above — edged down 0.4 percent year-on-year, narrowing the index for 2022 by 0.2 percentage points. Total industrial output of strategic emerging industries came to 399.23 billion yuan in the January to March period, accounting for 43.5 percent of the city's total gross industrial output value for designated enterprises.

Driven strongly by industrial investment, fixed-asset investment across the city surged 13.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, a stark contrast with a slip of 1 percent throughout 2022.

The city's total imports and exports of goods amounted to 1.05 trillion yuan between January and March, a rise of 3.5 percent year-on-year. Among them, imports to Shanghai grew by 6.9 percent to 639.3 billion yuan against a 1.4 percent decline in exports that amounted to 407.8 billion yuan.

Exports of new energy vehicles, lithium batteries and solar cells were strong in the first three months, expanding 98.2, 220 and 57.3 percent, respectively.

Thanks to the rapid restoration of ordinary life since the beginning of the year, consumption has risen steadily and the city's total retail sales of consumer goods scaled up by 5.2 percent to 461.1 billion yuan in the first quarter.

The consumer price index has been generally stable, reporting a mild increase of 1.6 percent from a year ago, and the unemployment rate in urban areas was at 4.9 percent on average. Shanghai's per-capita disposable income grew 3.6 percent to 23,489 yuan during the same period.