Policies bear fruit as Shanghai's economy continues to rise

Shanghai's economy presented a steady growth this year with the help of investment and supportive policies.

The service sector, pioneering industries, and investment in Shanghai all maintained growth momentum in the first six months.

Shanghai's gross domestic product reached 223,455 billion yuan (US$ 223.5 trillion) in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 4.8 percent.

The added value of the city's service industry grew by 5.8 percent, with the transport, storage, and postal sectors growing the fastest of all at 104.045 billion yuan, an increase of 16 percent.

Pioneering industries have been playing a leading role in the growth of industrial production in the first half.

The total output value of the city's three major pioneering industries (integrated circuits, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence) grew by 6.1 percent year on year, with integrated circuits showing the fastest growth at 19.2 percent.

Various policies have been released to support the development of pioneering industries. Shanghai released the "2024 Invest in Shanghai" policy package in March, in which an industrial investment fund of funds (FoF) was set with a total scale of 100 billion yuan.

From January to August, the city's social investment in fixed assets rose 7.8 percent over the same period last year. Among them, industrial investment increased by 9.9 percent and real estate development investment increased by 8.1 percent.

Shanghai's development has always been closely linked to foreign investment.

From January to July this year, Shanghai set up 3,516 new foreign-invested enterprises, up 7.8 percent from the same period last year.

The top three industries in terms of the amount of actual use of foreign capital were leasing and business services, wholesale and retail trade, and scientific research and technology services.

Since 2021, Shanghai has organized four Shanghai Global Investment Promotion Conferences.

As of this year, Shanghai's action plan to optimize the business environment has welcomed its seventh edition, aiming to reduce the information gap between businesses and the government.

"Liberalization and market access in the service trade and digital fields are crucial, so system-based liberalization is an important criterion for judging the business environment," said Wang Sizheng, president of the Shanghai Macroeconomic Society.

"I think openness is and will remain Shanghai's biggest charm," said Wang.