Shanghai's GDP grew 3 percent to 1.05 trillion yuan in Q1

Shanghai's economy is off to a good start in the first quarter of 2023, with its gross domestic product presenting a growth of 3 percent year on year.

The city's GDP reached 1.05 trillion yuan (US$153.84 billion) in the first quarter when calculated at comparable prices, data from the Shanghai Statistics Bureau showed.

Production and demand showed signs of improvement, and the unemployment rate remained stable.

The primary sector's value rose by 1.7 percent year on year, while the figure of the secondary sector dipped 0.9 percent compared with the same period last year.

The value of the tertiary sector expanded 4.3 percent which was 4 percentage points higher than that of last year as a whole.

In particular, the contact-intensive service industry, which was greatly affected by the epidemic in the previous period, has rebounded significantly.

In the first quarter, the value of the accommodation and catering industry as well as the leasing and business service industry increased by 11.1 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively.

Despite the overall decrease of 0.4 percent in the city's value-added industrial output, it has stabilized and started to recover, with industrial output in March posting a surge of 11.6 percent, which was 2.8 percentage points faster than February.

The development of new industries and business patterns is taking place at a rapid pace in the city.

In January-March, the city's three leading manufacturing industries saw a combined 3.1 percent increase in output value compared with the same period last year. Among them, the outputs of artificial intelligence and bio-pharmaceuticals increased respectively by 10.7 percent and 6.2 percent.

The outputs of new industrial strategic emerging industries, such as new energy, new-energy vehicles, and high-end equipment manufacturing, meanwhile, separately soared by 50.1 percent, 42.4 percent, and 15.1 percent.

The bureau also highlighted that the market vitality in the city continued to increase. In the first three months, there were 103,000 enterprises newly set up in Shanghai, an increase of 30.4 percent from a year earlier.

To be noted, the structure of newly established enterprises was improving, with the number of those in the information and technology service industries increasing by 33.6 percent and 24.6 percent respectively compared with the same period last year.

Small and medium-sized enterprises recovered quickly.

In the first quarter, the year-on-year decline in output value of SMEs in the industrial sector narrowed by 8.5 percentage points and 11 percentage points compared with January and February respectively, with a rebound higher than that of the entire industrial sector in Shanghai.

Consumption recovery

The city's market consumption has also shown signs of recovery, as retail sales of consumer goods were up 5.2 percent to 461.1 billion yuan in the first quarter, among which sales in the services sector grew significantly.

Fixed asset investment, meanwhile, grew by 13.6 percent year on year in January-March period, with some industries in the tertiary sector being the major bright spots.

Investment in the information transmission, software and information technology services industry, and scientific research and technology services industry rocketed by 50.8 percent and 77.3 percent, respectively.

The use of foreign investment in the city was on the rise. In the first two months of this year, the actual amount of foreign investment used grew 18 percent to reach US$4.96 billion. Notably, that used in the scientific research and technical services industry saw a significant jump of 72.1 percent.

In the first quarter, Shanghai welcomed 16 new regional headquarters of multinational corporations and seven new foreign-funded research and development centers, bringing the total number in the city to 907 and 538, respectively.

The registered urban unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in the period, while the per-capita disposable income of Shanghai's residents also continued to increase, up 3.6 percent year on year to 23,489 yuan, which was 1.6 percentage points faster than the whole 2022.