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City posts good growth
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Song Yingwen
THE city has registered steady economic growth in the first five months of the year with an increase of 12.5 per cent in GDP as compared with that of the same period last year, according to the statistics released by the municipal statistics information bureau. Though the indicators are positive and illustrate the fact that SZ has led Beijing and Shanghai in the average GDP growth rate in recent months, Vice-Mayor Li Decheng described the trend of growth as “unpredictable”.
“We saw smooth growth in GDP in the first months of this year, but at the same time, we see quite a few destabilizing factors that could drop the rate down. In a word, we shouldn't be over-optimistic,” Li said yesterday.
These destabilizing factors are: an unstable world economy and trade, limited investment funds and a severe shortage of electricity.
The impact of the world economy is obvious: because of the shrinking demand in world market for IT products, the growth rate of exports has decreased by 10.7 per cent compared with the same period of last year. And to keep their existing market share, companies have had to reduce prices to survive, leading to a decline in revenue.
Shortage of investment funds and electricity have limited the growth of the economy. In the past few months, only 38 per cent of the total capital that had been planned to be invested in various projects were in place. The delay in receiving loans and policies that had kept the idle funds from entering into market will eventually lead to a drop in output.
Li pointed out that to stimulate the economy, SZ should eye new markets in Europe and western China. “The high-tech industry will continue to be our focus, and we should make preferential policies to attract idle funds to expand our capital sources as well,” Li said.
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