On January 21, the operational status of Shanghai's national economy for 2025 was publicly disclosed: according to the unified accounting results of the regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Shanghai achieved a GDP of 5,670.871 billion yuan in 2025. Calculated at constant prices, this represents a year-on-year increase of 5.4%. This figure not only surpasses the national GDP growth rate of 5% but also marks a 0.4 percentage point improvement over Shanghai's own GDP growth rate in 2024. Against a backdrop of complex and volatile external conditions and a low starting point at the beginning of the year, Shanghai delivered a report card highlighting the city's economic vitality and resilience, driven by three areas of performance that exceeded expectations: breakthroughs in new growth drivers, a recovery in the consumer market, and the pronounced resilience of foreign trade.
On the critical track of industrial transformation, Shanghai has achieved significant results in cultivating new quality productive forces. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), the three leading industries—integrated circuits, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence—have become crucial engines for Shanghai's industrial development. In 2025, the manufacturing output value of Shanghai's three leading industries increased by 9.6% year-on-year, a growth rate nearly 5 percentage points higher than that of the total output value of industries above a designated size in Shanghai. Specifically, the output value of the integrated circuit manufacturing and artificial intelligence manufacturing industries grew by 15.1% and 13.6%, respectively. The output value of strategic emerging industries in the industrial sector increased by 6.5% year-on-year.
The "dynamic transformation" in the service sector is resonating with the "quality improvement and acceleration" in the industrial sector. In 2025, the added value of Shanghai's tertiary industry grew by 6% year-on-year, exceeding the national average, with the information services industry, surging at 15.3%, acting as the core driver. Platform enterprises, cloud computing, and integrated circuit design companies collectively form a "growth matrix" for the information services industry, not only filling the growth space of traditional services but also becoming a key force driving the industrial structure upgrade of a megacity. Benefiting from the push in computing power services and the accelerated commencement of integrated circuit design projects, the operating revenue of Shanghai's software and information technology services industry from January to November 2025 increased by 24.2% year-on-year. Driven by factors such as innovative drug research and development, the operating revenue of Shanghai's research and experimental development services industry from January to November 2025 grew by 15.1% year-on-year.
As a barometer of economic vitality, Shanghai's total retail sales of consumer goods charted a curve of "sequential quarterly warming" throughout 2025. In 2025, the city achieved total retail sales of consumer goods amounting to 1,660.093 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.6%, with the growth rate accelerating by 0.3 percentage points compared to the first three quarters. In a complex and ever-changing international environment, Shanghai demonstrated resilience exceeding expectations. In 2025, the total value of Shanghai's goods imports and exports reached 4.51 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.6%. Exports amounted to 2.02 trillion yuan, growing by 10.8%, while imports totaled 2.49 trillion yuan, increasing by 1.8%. All three indicators—total imports and exports, exports, and imports—reached record highs. The export value of the "new three" products—electric passenger vehicles, lithium-ion batteries, and solar cells—reached 0.16 trillion yuan, surging by 17.4% year-on-year; within this category, the export value of electric passenger vehicles grew by 13.8%.
This unexpectedly strong resilience stems from Shanghai's continuously strengthening connections with global industrial chains, supply chains, and innovation chains. In recent years, Shanghai has persistently enhanced the construction of its "Five Centers" and elevated the level of its high-standard openness. In 2025, the total number of domestic and international financial institutions in Shanghai reached 1,813; the total trade volume through Shanghai's ports exceeded 11 trillion yuan, ranking first among global cities; the annual container throughput at Shanghai Port reached 55.063 million TEUs, maintaining the top global position for the 16th consecutive year; and the transaction value of technology contracts in Shanghai for 2025 reached 649.679 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.9%.
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