Shanghai's GDP grows more than expected

Shanghai's economy grew steadily with gross domestic product up by a better-than-expected 7 percent year-on-year rise in the first three quarters of 2017, the Shanghai Statistics Bureau said today.

The pace was 0.1 percentage point faster than the same period of last year, and 0.1 percentage point faster than the national average in the first nine months of this year.

"Shanghai’s economy grew steadily in general and were better than expected," said Tang Huihao, deputy director of the bureau, at a briefing. "The economic structure is constantly optimized and upgraded, while new driving forces are growing more rapidly and the quality and efficiency of development is further improved."

Value-added industrial output, an important economic indicator, rose 8.9 percent to 605.59 billion yuan (US$91.99 billion) in the first three quarters, reversing a 1.4 percent decrease in the same period of last year.

Industrial production, meanwhile, climbed to 2.48 trillion yuan during the nine-month period at a year-on-year rise of 9.4 percent, the bureau's data showed.

The city's services output rose 6.6 percent to 1.49 trillion yuan, contributing 69 percent of the local GDP, which is a slight drop from 70.9 percent last year.

The bureau’s data also showed that value-added output of information technology, transportation and logistics and the financial industry grew by double digits while output from the real estate industry fell by 15.1 percent year on year.

Shanghai’s foreign trade advanced by 16.6 percent from a year earlier to 2.39 trillion yuan with the increasing external and domestic demand, reversing the 0.2 percent drop in the same period last year, the data showed.

Fixed-asset investment rose 6.4 percent in the first three quarters at the same pace as a year ago. Investment in infrastructure grew by 10.7 percent but at a 7.9 percentage points slower pace. Investment in real estate development rose 5 percent, 0.9 percentage points faster than the same period a year earlier.

The retail sales rose 13.4 percent to 8.28 trillion yuan in January to September, accelerating from a 7.2 percent growth during the same period last year.

The city's consumer inflation rose at a slower pace. The Consumer Price Index, a main gauge of inflation, climbed 1.8 percent year on year in the nine-month period, 1.4 percentage points lower from a year ago, the statistics bureau said.