Following another year of robust economic activity, Shanghai entered its 15th consecutive year of double-digit growth last year, official figures showed yesterday.

 

The city's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 12 percent year-on-year to 1.02 trillion yuan (US$154 billion) last year, making Shanghai the seventh city to join the country's trillion-yuan GDP club.

 

South China's Guangdong Province; East China's Shandong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces; and Central China's Henan and Hubei provinces have already crossed the trillion-yuan mark.

 

"The economy maintained its stable and healthy development in 2006," the municipal statistics bureau said in a statement yesterday.

 

The municipality's agriculture sector grew by 0.8 percent year-on-year, while industry notched up a 12.8 percent growth rate, the figures showed.

 

The services industry grew by 11.5 percent on the back of booms in finance, logistics and information technology.

 

The financial sector grew by 17.6 percent, the highest rate of the services sector, which bodes well for the city's goal of transforming itself into a world-class financial hub in the years to come.

 

Boosted by the bullish sentiment in the market, turnover at the Shanghai Stock Exchange doubled to 5.78 trillion yuan, while the futures market saw its trading volume grow 92.8 percent to 12.61 trillion yuan last year, the figures showed.

 

The foreign trade volume hit US$227.5 billion, representing a 22.1 percent year-on-year increase.

 

Exports surged by 25.2 percent to US$113.5 billion, while imports increased by 19.1 percent to US$113.9 billion.

 

At the same time, consumption played a bigger part in spurring local economic growth, the figures showed.

 

Consumer spending hit 336 billion yuan, surging 13 percent year-on-year, the quickest pace since 1998.

 

Industrial firms earned combined profits of 108.6 billion yuan, up 16 percent year-on-year, reversing the slump of the year before.

 

The statistics also indicated that macro economic controls have begun to bite.

 

Fixed asset investment, a closely watched figure, increased 10.8 percent year-on-year to 392 billion yuan, down 4 percentage points from the previous year.

 

(China Daily January 24, 2007)