City releases economic results for first six months

Shanghai’s economic performance during the first six months of this year indicates the city is lowering its reliance on the property industry, while the finance, wholesale and retail sectors continue to play a significant role in its growth.

According to the Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau, the service industry accounted for more than 80 percent of fixed-asset investment and attracted more than 90 percent of total foreign direct investment.

The added value of the tertiary industry grew 7 percent year-onyear to 971.38 billion yuan ($143 billion), contributing to 69.9 percent of the total GDP.

Meanwhile, the real estate sector posted revenue takings of 70.98 billion yuan from January to June, down 17.5 percent year-on-year. Its investment growth rate has been falling, too, said Tang Huihao, the bureau’s chief economist.

“After the central government stressed that homes should not be used for speculating but for living, the local property sector showed a downward trend in both investment growth and transaction volume,” he said.

Total investment in the property sector increased 4.1 percent in the first half, but was down 4.6 percentage points compared to a year ago. Transaction volume of newly built commercial homes declined 41 percent in the first half from a year ago, and transaction of used homes tumbled 56.8 percent during the same period, hitting a five-year low.

The statistics from the bureau also showed that construction of new property space continued to grow steadily with a 3.2 percent growth compared to last year, while 38.8 percent more new residential space was built in the first six months.

According to official statistics, Shanghai expanded its GDP at a rate of 6.9 percent year-on-year to 1.39 trillion yuan, 0.2 percentage point higher than the same period last year. The city also registered a double-digit growth for its import and export volume in the first half of this year.

The last time this happened was in 2012. The Shanghai Customs District said that the total import and export volume of the city reached 1.6 trillion yuan during the first six months, up 18.7 percent year-on-year.

Authorities revealed that total export rose 12 percent year-on-year to 626.6 billion yuan. The structure of export products has been optimized, with the growth rate of exported mechanical and electrical products outperforming that of traditional labor-intensive products.

On the other hand, total import volume jumped 23.7 percent to 926.7 billion yuan. Passenger cars, medical and healthcare products were the most popular import categories.

Integrated circuit was the largest import category in Shanghai in the first half, with the total volume reaching 101.3 billion yuan, taking up 10.9 percent of the city’s total import value.

Zheng Jugang, deputy director of Shanghai Customs, said that the city has seen better results in import mainly because of the increased prices of bulk commodities globally and the city dwellers’ higher demand for life quality.