Chart of the Day: Beijing’s GDP Hits 3 Trillion Yuan as Shanghai Remains Biggest Economy

Shanghai remains China’s biggest city by gross domestic product (GDP), with Beijing in the number two spot, city-level GDP data shows.

While there was no year-on-year change to the rankings of China’s largest ten economies in 2018, Beijing became the country’s second city to exceed a GDP of 3 trillion yuan ($447 billion).

Shanghai’s GDP climbed 6.6% to 3.27 trillion yuan in 2018, meaning it now accounts for 3.63% of China’s overall GDP of 90.03 trillion yuan. The local GDP per capita exceeded $20,000, according to Shanghai Mayor Ying Xiong.

Beijing’s GDP hit 3 trillion yuan, growing 6.6% year-on-year. Since Beijing’s population declined last year, its GDP per capita is expected to rise.

South China’s Guangdong province had two cities in the top 10. Shenzhen ranked third with 2.4 trillion yuan, while neighboring Guangzhou ranked fourth with 2.3 trillion, up 6.5% on 2017.

The tenth-ranked city, Hangzhou, had a GDP of 1.35 trillion yuan. That’s about the same size as the Greek economy in 2017, according to World Bank data, and a bit over five times the estimated wealth of the city’s most successful businessman, Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma.

Also notable is that seven out of the top ten cities saw their GDP grow at or above the official national GDP growth figure of 6.6% for 2018, a figure which marked China’s slowest national annual expansion since 1990.

Most of China’s provinces have also lowered their growth targets for 2019.

Contact reporter Gao Baiyu(baiyugao@caixin.com)