Shanghai to further enhance core competitiveness

Shanghai aims to further enhance the city's core competitiveness this year by stressing innovation and openness, according to the city government.

At a press conference on Thursday, officials from key government departments summarised the city's economic achievements in the past year and the key tasks for the year ahead.

In 2024, Shanghai's economic development continued to improve.

Shanghai's gross domestic product exceeded 5 trillion yuan (US$680 billion), an increase of about 5 percent over the previous year, and total financial market transactions reached 3,650 trillion yuan last year.

Shanghai's financial opening up to the outside world continues to deepen, the IMF Shanghai Regional Center was inaugurated, foreign-funded financial institutions accounted for more than 30 percent of the total, and 42 financial institutions achieved data compliance out of the country.

Shanghai's cross-border yuan settlement volume in 2024 reached 24.7 trillion yuan in January-October, accounting for 47 percent of the national settlement volume.

In addition, the city accelerated the construction of five centers, namely, a global center for economy, finance, trade, shipping, and science and technology innovation, and the comprehensive strength of the international economic center continued to strengthen, with the annual total import and export volume of the port exceeding 11 trillion yuan, continuing to maintain first place among global cities.

Last year, the annual container throughput of Shanghai port reached 51.5 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), maintaining the world's first for 15 consecutive years, becoming the world's first world port with an annual throughput of more than 50 million TEUs.

In terms of new quality productive forces, Shanghai has also played a leading role, with the industrial output value of the three leading industries growing by 11.9 percent.

New R&D institutions have also accelerated their landing in Shanghai, with 60 new regional headquarters of multinational corporations and 30 foreign-funded R&D centers last year, bringing the cumulative total to 1,016 and 591, respectively; 49 new innovative enterprise headquarters have been identified; and 25,000 high-tech enterprises established.

In addition, the business environment continues to be optimized, the 150 reform initiatives for optimizing the business environment version 7.0 have been fully completed, and the "service package" system for key enterprises has reduced the burden of business entities by more than 116 billion yuan, which has stimulated market vitality.

For the next stage, Gu Jun, director of the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission, said Shanghai will further comprehensively deepen the reform, expand the high-level opening to the outside world, expand domestic demand, stabilize expectations, and stimulate economic vitality, coping with uncertainties in the external environment with the certainty of its high-quality development.

Zhang Ying, director of the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Informatization, said: "This year, Shanghai will focus on the keyword 'new' by developing an intelligent economy, accelerating the promotion of the artificial intelligence industry, and opening up new tracks in new fields such as intelligent terminals, biomanufacturing, marine equipment, spatial information, and robotics, to continue to empower industrial upgrading."