Amid the bustling 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, where 'general embodied intelligence' is a major highlight for exhibitors, the city of Shanghai is pulsating with technological energy. As global attention converges on the metropolis, its economic performance report for the first half of the year has been released. From January to June, Shanghai's regional GDP reached 2.788663 trillion yuan, marking a year-on-year increase of 5.6%. This growth rate is 0.9 percentage points higher than the national average, placing Shanghai's economic growth speed at a joint third position nationally.
Overall, the city's economy in the first half adhered to the principle of high-quality development, balancing efforts to stabilize growth, foster innovation, expand domestic demand, and maintain external demand. It exhibited distinct characteristics of steady improvement, a leap towards new growth drivers, and robust performance in both supply and demand. Key sectors such as industry, finance, and large-scale service enterprises maintained their growth momentum. Indicators including fiscal revenue, investment, and foreign trade demonstrated resilient growth, while employment and prices remained stable. Market confidence and expectations improved, showcasing the economy's considerable resilience and vitality. The city has successfully achieved the goal of 'half the time, half the tasks completed' in its socio-economic development objectives.
Key Sectors Synergize to Fortify Growth Foundation
As the first Chinese city to surpass 5 trillion yuan in GDP, Shanghai's steady growth on such a high base, amidst a period of profound global changes, relies on the coordinated efforts of its pillar industries. This year, Shanghai's industrial structure has continued to optimize, with secondary and tertiary industries developing in a coordinated manner. In the first half, the added value of the secondary and tertiary industries increased by 4.7% and 5.9% year-on-year, respectively. New growth drivers are leading the industrial upgrade, with sectors like industry, finance, and information transmission, software, and information technology services playing a sustained supportive role, collectively contributing over 70% to the city's economic growth.
The complementary strengths and synergistic efforts of these key industries have constructed a multi-point, stable, and robust foundation for economic growth. The resilience of industrial growth has strengthened, with the city's industrial added value rising 5.6% year-on-year in the first half. The output value of strategic emerging industries in the industrial sector grew by 7.7%, with notable increases in the new energy vehicle industry (33.9%), the new energy industry (20.6%), and the high-end equipment industry (9.3%).
Financial market activity has been brisk, with service quality and efficiency continuously improving. In the first half, the total transaction volume of the city's major financial markets reached 2,269.16 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.1%. Sectors including futures, gold, securities, banking, and deposits in local and foreign currencies all maintained year-on-year growth rates exceeding 10%. The release of the 'Shanghai International Financial Center Offshore Finance Action Plan' at the 2026 Lujiazui Forum in June signals that Shanghai's development as an international financial hub is gradually shifting from scale expansion to functional deepening and capacity enhancement. In the first half, Shanghai issued a cumulative total of 11 offshore bonds in its free trade zone, equivalent to 4.2 billion yuan. A number of hard-tech companies in the fields of chips, artificial intelligence, and biomedicine have also listed on the capital markets, with Shanghai adding 14 new companies applying for the STAR Market, ranking first nationally.
New Quality Productive Forces Activate Fresh Momentum
While solidifying its foundational sectors, Shanghai's economic growth drivers are continuously iterating and upgrading, with industrial development comprehensively transforming towards innovation-driven and high-end leadership. In the first half, the city focused on cultivating new quality productive forces, strengthening emerging service formats, expanding new industrial momentum, and continuously shaping new competitive advantages for the future.
Emerging service formats are accelerating and expanding, with technology services becoming a new engine for growth. The added value of information transmission, software, and information technology services increased by 9.1% year-on-year in the first half. From January to May, operating revenue in integrated circuit design and internet platforms in the city grew by 24.0% and 12.5% year-on-year, respectively, indicating strong growth potential in emerging service industries. Leveraging a well-developed science and innovation service ecosystem, 'invisible services' such as R&D, design, software, and information services are rapidly rising, becoming a key force in leveraging industrial upgrades. As a leader in life science foundation models, BioMap, in collaboration with Harbour BioMed, established an AI pipeline R&D company in April, building a dedicated AI foundation for complex macromolecular drug development. The AI industry itself is a major growth pole in the current development of the software and information sector, and a complete innovation cycle where tech services empower industrial development is rapidly taking shape in Shanghai.
New industrial momentum continues to grow, with the three leading industries persistently driving growth. In the first half, the output value of the city's three leading industries increased by 14.5% year-on-year, with integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, and biomedicine growing by 19.5%, 21.8%, and 7.2%, respectively. Coinciding with the 2026 World AI Conference, the establishment of the World AI Cooperation Organization in Shanghai has brought together achievements in the deep integration of AI with various key industries, injecting strong momentum into the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. Leveraging the agglomeration effect of the conference, the implementation of AI applications across the city is accelerating, with cutting-edge technologies like multimodal large models, embodied intelligence, and intelligent agents widely empowering a multitude of sectors.
Dual Drivers of Demand Expand Growth Space
In the first half, Shanghai persisted in a dual strategy of expanding domestic demand and stabilizing external demand, continuously optimizing the investment structure and solidifying the foundation of foreign trade. Investment quality and efficiency improved across multiple fields, while total foreign trade import and export volumes hit a record high, demonstrating remarkable resilience.
Investment maintained steady and relatively rapid growth. In the first half, the city's fixed-asset investment increased by 6.8% year-on-year. Within this, industrial investment, urban infrastructure investment, and social undertakings investment grew by 19.2%, 18.8%, and 19.5%, respectively. Among major sectors, driven by the vigorous development of the three leading industries, continuous increased investment in equipment renewal for areas like intelligent models and computing power platforms led to a 1.4-fold year-on-year increase in investment in information transmission, software, and information technology services.
Foreign trade exports showed robust growth. The total value of goods import and export for the city in the first half reached 2.55 trillion yuan, setting a new record for the same period. Imports and exports grew by 17.4% and 20.1% year-on-year, respectively. High-tech products were a significant growth driver, with total import and export value reaching 662.14 billion yuan, a 21.6% increase. Within this, import and export of electronic information and high-end equipment products grew by 20.7% and 26.5%, respectively.
Consumption structure continued to upgrade. The city's total retail sales of consumer goods in the first half amounted to 831.973 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.7%. The synergistic effect of integrating culture, commerce, tourism, sports, and exhibitions has been continuously amplified. Since the second quarter, dozens of integrated events have been held, including the F1 and Checkered Flag Carnival, the Auto Culture Festival, the International Flower Festival, the International Coffee Festival, the International Film Festival, and the 'Ancient Civilizations of the Americas' exhibition. The city is striving to become the premier entry point for inbound tourism, launching the nation's first 'no-destination' cruise route. In the first half, the city received a cumulative total of 5.315 million inbound tourists, a year-on-year increase of 27.8%.
Ensuring Stability for Sustainable Progress
Stabilizing employment, prices, and benefiting people's livelihoods provides a solid foundation for Shanghai's upward trajectory. In the first half, the city's Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 0.8% year-on-year, while per capita disposable income of residents increased by 4.2% year-on-year. The average surveyed urban unemployment rate stood at 4.2%.
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