SHENZHEN’s economy continues its rapid recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, with the city’s added value of industrial enterprises above designated size between January and May up by 4.9% year on year, 0.7 percentage points higher than that of the first four months, according to the city’s statistics bureau.

By sector, the added value of mining and manufacturing industries above designated size increased by 13.8% and 4.9% year on year, respectively, while added value of utilities such as electricity, heat, gas and water went down by 2.7%.

Among major industries, the added value of the oil and natural gas extraction industry above designated size grew by 13.6%, special equipment manufacturing industry grew by 11.6%, automobile manufacturing industry grew by 97.6%, and pharmaceutical manufacturing industry grew by 6.4%.

The output of high-tech products continued to grow rapidly. The output of new energy vehicles, charging piles, 5G smart phones and civil drones shot up by 179.2%, 186.3%, 78.8% and 30.7%, respectively.

For the first five months of the year, Shenzhen’s fixed asset investment increased by 10.9% from a year earlier. Industrial investment surged by 50.7%, where manufacturing and real estate development investments increased by 44.6% and 3.4%, respectively.

Retail sales picked up significantly in May, with retail sales of retailers above designated size went up by 2.8% year on year, 2.7 percentage points higher than that in April. In particular, retail sales in the automobile industry grew by 3.9%, 9.4 percentage points higher from the previous month.

From January to May, the total retail sales of consumer goods in Shenzhen reached 360.05 billion yuan (US$53.71 billion), down by 2.8% year on year. The city’s consumer price index, the main gauge of inflation, rose 2.2% year on year.

Shenzhen’s imports and exports hit 1.3 trillion yuan in the first five months, down 1% year on year. The decline narrowed by 0.3 percentage points than that of the January-April period.

The balance of the city’s domestic and foreign currency deposits reached 11.63 trillion yuan by the end of May, up 11.4% year on year.    (Zhang Yu)