Shanghai aims to play leading role in Chinese-style modernization

As part of its efforts to become a socialist, modern and international metropolis with global influence, Shanghai will strive to play a leading role in Chinese-style modernization, and make high quality development, further deepen reform and expand opening-up, promoting integrated development of scientific, technological and industrial innovation as its focus in 2025, according to official sources.

To continue the economic rebound, the city would implement measures to boost demand, especially consumption demand, as a key driver of economic growth and stabilization, as well as promote investment and quality foreign trade, said Hua Yuan, vice-mayor of Shanghai, during the city's annual briefing on commerce and investment on Wednesday.

"Shanghai will constantly increase its core competitiveness to build international centers of economy, finance, trade, shipping and science and technological innovation. We would deepen high-level reform and opening-up, vigorously cultivate and develop new quality productive forces, as well as continue to build a world-class business environment by improving the modernization level of urban governance," said Hua.

"Shanghai has achieved steady economic growth in the past year with its GDP growing 5 percent to surpass 5 trillion yuan ($686 billion), ranking among the leading global cities," Hua said.

In 2024, Shanghai generated 1.79 trillion yuan in retail sales of consumer goods, leading other cities in the country. At the same time, 60 multinational corporations' regional headquarters and 30 foreign-funded research and development centers were newly certified last year, bringing the total of both in the city to 1,016 and 591, respectively.

The scale of the city's three leading industries, namely integrated circuits, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence, expanded to 1.8 trillion yuan, and the R&D spending intensity, or the expenditure on R&D as a percentage of its gross domestic product, is around 4.4 percent.

In 2024, trading volume of Shanghai's financial market expanded 8.2 percent to reach 3,650 trillion yuan. Being the world's busiest container port, the port of Shanghai handled 51.51 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) throughout 2024, holding the top position for 15 consecutive years by container throughput globally.

Shanghai people's livelihood has also seen steady improvement. The per capita disposable income of local people increased 4.2 percent to hit 88,000 yuan last year, 622,000 new job positions were added across the city, and the proportion of days with good air quality reached 88.5 percent, an increase of 0.8 percentage point year-on-year, Hua said.

"The past year has seen a series of new breakthroughs in high-level opening-up, consumption boost, high-quality trade and structural optimization of foreign investment," said Zhu Min, director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce.

According to Zhu, Shanghai's total imports and exports recorded 4.27 trillion yuan last year, registering a positive growth for the ninth straight year.

"As many as 297 Fortune 500 companies and industry leading companies participated in the 7th China International Import Expo held last November, setting a new record in the event's history," Zhu said.