Top marks for Shanghai as numbers tell the story
Long queues formed outside the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall last week as people turned out to visit the annual exhibition of the city’s development, a key driver of the last 70 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
In the queue was one family spanning three generations that somehow typified China’s transformation — the older people who remember the hard times of the past, middle-aged people who lived through the winds of change and young people who have new horizons of opportunities ahead of them.
Shanghai has indeed been at the forefront of a remarkable transformation. Its economic data tell the story.
GDP
Gross domestic product last year was 3.27 trillion yuan (US$480 billion based on the exchange rate early this year), towering over the 2.028 billion yuan of 1949. Average annual growth has been 9.8 percent.
Per-capita GDP skyrocketed to 135,000 yuan last year from 274 yuan 70 years earlier, topping the US$20,000 standard used to define “advanced” economies for the first time.
Much of the city’s rapid growth has rested on its industries, which have been undergoing modernization, consolidation, streamlining and improved management over the decades.
In 2018, primary industries, which include farming, fishing and mining, accounted for 0.3 percent of GDP. Secondary industries such as auto manufacture and steel production comprised 29.8 percent, and tertiary industries, including education, health care, tourism and retail services sectors, contributed to 69.9 percent of the economy.
“The proportion of the tertiary sector has reached nearly 70 percent, indicating that an industrial structure dominated by services has formed in the city,” according to the Shanghai Statistics Bureau.
The number of workers in Shanghai has increased from 2.5 million in 1949 to 13.7 million in 2017. The structure of employment has changed radically. The services sector provided 65.5 percent of jobs in 2017, compared with 28.4 percent in 1949.
Lifestyle
Shanghai residents have seen their incomes grow by leaps and bounds.
In 2018, per capita disposable income of urban residents in the city shot up 166-fold from 1978 to 68,034 yuan, while rural incomes rose 105 times to 30,375 yuan.
The average wage of employees in Shanghai has soared from 686 yuan in 1949 to 85,582 yuan in 2017, an average annual increase of 7.4 percent.
The advent of a consumer society has brought great benefits to residents. Higher disposable incomes have led to homebuying, holidays, automobile ownership and a comfortable lifestyle.
In 2018, the per capita consumption expenditure of urban residents rose 129-fold from 1978 to 46,015 yuan. Rural consumption gained 103-fold to 19,965 yuan. Average growth rates were around 12 percent.
Every 100 urban families own an average 38 cars, 207 air conditioners, 223 mobile phones and 107 computers. For many younger people, it’s impossible today to imagine their grandparents and great-grandparents living without what today have come to be viewed as necessities. Per capita living space in the city increased from 3.9 square meters in 1949 to 37 square meters last year.
Health care
Provision of health care services has vastly improved the quality of life for residents. Shanghai’s infant mortality and maternal death rates have dropped, and average life expectancy has risen — all indicators reaching or exceeding the levels of developed countries.
The planned economy and centrally administered price system of the past have given way to new market-driven policies.
After China initiated the reform and opening-up policies in 1978, consumer prices in Shanghai fluctuated greatly but eventually stabilized to steady, rational trends in more recent decades.
The relationship between cost and supply-demand has been influenced by key factors such as economic development, monetary policy, external price inputs, supply-side structural reforms and environmental protection policies. The industrial producer price index has weathered “three ups and two downs,” in general.
“Over the past 70 years, Shanghai has insisted on putting people first and has made great efforts to address the most direct and realistic interests of the public,” the bureau said.
The city has indeed implemented numerous rounds of system reforms and large-scale construction in health care and other fields.
Education
Education reforms have been a top priority. The current system is more open, more comprehensive and fairer than in the past.
The number of students studying in the city’s general colleges and universities increased from 20,300 in 1949 to 517,800 in 2018. In 2017, the average period of schooling for the working-age population was about 12 years, while the proportion of those receiving higher education reached about 35 percent.
“In the past 70 years, and especially over the last four decades, Shanghai has undergone tremendous changes and explored a new road for the development of a mega-city,” Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong said. “The city has become an important window of China’s reform and opening-up policies, and a vivid microcosm of the country’s developmental achievements.”
