Top consumption driver Shanghai records strongest growth

China's financial hub Shanghai took the crown on the list of China's top 10 cities by consumption last year, followed by Beijing and Chongqing, according to the 21st Century Business Herald. The total retail sales of consumer goods of the top three all exceeded 1 trillion yuan ($154.8 billion).

Shanghai witnessed the strongest consumption capacity across the country in 2020. The city's retail sales of consumer goods rose 0.5 percent to 1.59 trillion yuan, topping the 1.5 trillion yuan mark and registering a positive growth.

In comparison, China's retail sales of consumer goods, a major indicator of consumption growth, fell 3.9 percent year-on-year to 39.2 trillion yuan in 2020, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

New energy vehicles boom contributed substantially to Shanghai's consumption. Last year, Shanghai's auto sales rose 1.1 percent from a year earlier, among which NEV sales surged 99.1 percent, compared with a 5 percent decline in oil-fueled vehicles.

Chongqing, which ranked at third place, is another city among the top 10 which saw positive growth in retail sales of consumer goods. Last year, Chongqing's retail sales rose 1.3 percent year-on-year to 1.18 trillion yuan. NEV sales jumped 31.7 percent, reflecting Chongqing's significant potential in consumption.

As a municipality with more than 30 million population and a urbanization rate of 66.8 percent, a large number of people in Chongqing still live in rural area, and the share of the tertiary industry was lower than the national level. In the process of further promoting urbanization and optimizing industrial structure, Chongqing hopes to release more consumption demands, the report said.

Meanwhile, the top 10 cities are all national or regional center cities, with strong "siphonic effect" in consumption. For instance, a capital city may attract all people in the province to consume, especially when buying cars, driving local per capita retail sales figure.

Wuhan, which was hit hard by the novel coronavirus earlier last year, experienced big drop in consumption. During the first three quarters in 2020, Wuhan's retail sales of consumer goods ranked at bottom in the top 10 list.

However, as the COVID-19 outbreak has begun to wane, the city saw a rapid recovery in consumption. Last year, sales of consumer goods reached 614.98 billion yuan in Wuhan, 17.68 billion yuan more than Hangzhou, which ranked at 10th place.