Shanghai's GDP maintains steady growth thanks to leading industries

Shanghai's economy maintained a steady growth momentum in the first nine months of the year, with employment and prices remaining stable.

From January to September this year, Shanghai realized a gross domestic product of 3.438 trillion yuan (US$482 billion), a year-on-year increase of 4.7 percent.

The growth was led by the services sector, which advanced 5.8 percent, while the agricultural sector up 5.5 percent and the manufacturing sector up 1.2 percent.

The output of the city's three leading industries – integrated circuits, biomedicine and artificial intelligence – outshone with a growth of 8.6 percent.

In addition, fixed-asset investment rose 6.7 percent year on year with industrial investment growing 10.9 percent, and real estate development investment up 7.8 percent.

The city's retail sales in the first three quarters amounted to 1.33 trillion yuan, down 3.4 percent on an annual basis. But sales of communication equipment, furniture, sports and recreational goods increased by 22.6 percent, 33.5 percent, and 37.7 percent, respectively.

Consumer prices in the first three quarters gained 0.2 percent, and the city's per capita disposable income was 66,341 yuan, up 4.3 percent year on year.

According to a recent survey by the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics , both consumer and investor confidence in Shanghai weakened in the third quarter from the previous three months, and the consumer confidence was just a bit higher than the threshold indicating optimism.

Xu Guoxiang, director of the Applied Statistics Research Center at the university, said that albeit the difficulties, the city should brave the transformation of old and new kinetic energy, while expecting more supportive measures to bolster the domestic demand.

"Compared with a turbulent global economy, we are still showing steady progress and moderate recovery," Xu said.